Class 1:1^ 
Book , F(n^t 
Gopightlf 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Religious Certainties 



Religious Certainties 



SERMONS 

ON SPECIAL OCCASIONS 

[Extemporaneously preached and stenographically reported.} 



By 

Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, D. D., LL. D. 

Of the Methodist Episcopal Church 



CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
fwt; Oopies Received 

JAN 20 1905 
4c<.u< . J A. 110 6 

( /6triS$ cl XXc NOi 

£OPY 6. 

L~ 



COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY 
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 



CONTENTS 

Page 



I. Four Great Religious Certain- 
ties, - 7 

II. The Faith Delivered Once for 

All, - - 45 

III. What Think Ye of Christ? - 77 

IV. Our Crisis, ----- 107 
V. All Things Freely Given, - 130 

VI. Mundane versus Cosmic Culture, 158 

VII. The Moral Element in Educa- 
tion, 181 



I. 



FOUR GREAT RELIGIOUS CERTAINTIES. 

(During the; General Conference:, Metro- 
politan Opera-House, New York, 
May 20, 1888.) 

"I count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. . . . 
That I may know Him and the power of His 
resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, 
being made comformable unto His death; if by 
any means I might attain unto the resurrection 
of the dead." — Phil,, hi, 8, 10, 11. 

Is the moon inhabited? If so, by beings like 
ourselves? And do they live in communities and 
nations? And are they agitated by the strifes of 
political parties, and by legislative debates about the 
tariff and free trade, and by conflicts between the 
nations on this side of the moon and on the other 
side, from which the earth is never seen? Strange 
questions, you may say, to be asked in this place, 

7 



8 



Reugious Certainties. 



and in connection with religious themes. Well, it 
is not I who am responsible for first raising these 
questions in connection with the Christian religion. 
The moon has certain well-understood relations to 
this globe. It is the brightest light and ornament 
of many of our nights. It is the first great stepping- 
stone in the knowledge of astronomy. It is the 
chief factor in raising the tides of the ocean. Some 
think its changes have something to do with the 
weather, and with the proper time for planting corn. 
But what hare-brained lunatic ever thought it worth 
his while to inquire about the politics of a planet 
which very likely is not inhabited? — for the astron- 
omers tell us it has no perceptible atmosphere. 
Again, I say, it is not I who am responsible for first 
raising these questions, and for raising them in con- 
nection with religious subjects, but one of the great 
masters of the skeptical thought of our time, Pro- 
fessor Huxley, who styles all the sober speculations 
of Christian philosophy, and all the confident afhrma- 
tions of Christian experience, as akin to lunar poli- 
tics. I use his phrase, "lunar politics." 

Has it, then, come to this? Has the bold and 
blatant agnosticism of our time reached this supreme 
height of self-assertion and of universal doubt? In 
this nineteenth century of grace, and on the eve of 



Pour Great Reugious Certainties. 9 

the last decade of it, when Christianity has girdled 
the globe, transforming every civilization it has 
touched; sanctifying senates and courts and legisla- 
tures by prayers and solemn oaths ; giving, through 
its Holy Scriptures, law to all lands; dominating 
the brain of the world and the wealth of the world, 
and the ruling nations of the world ; and manifestly 
marching on to world-wide dominion ; — are we now 
to be told that the majestic forces underlying this 
master movement of the ages, the thoughts of God 
and of heaven and of hell, and of the judgment-day, 
and of eternal retribution, "the powers of the world 
to come," as the Scriptures sublimely term some of 
these thoughts and forces, — that all these are akin 
to the politics of the moon? 

Away with all such bold and blatant skepticism ! 
Let us turn, on this bright, vernal Sabbath afternoon, 
to look at four great religious certainties. Certain- 
ties I say, deliberately and advisedly, for I confess 
myself at the outset not to be one of those who assert, 
or even admit, that in this age of "advanced thought" 
all things are in question. I rather prefer to believe, 
as I profoundly do believe, that long ago some things 
were settled once for all, and once for evermore. 

Suppose a man born and brought up on a West- 
ern prairie, let us say in the western portion of the 



io Reugious Certainties. 



State of Minnesota, to declare his sober belief that 
there is not anywhere on the globe such a thing as a 
mountain. From his cradle until manhood sur- 
rounded by a broad-spreading, flat, almost treeless 
prairie, with scores of miles of golden wheat-fields 
gleaming on every hand, he declares his belief that 
all the accounts given in the physical geographies of 
the height and bulk and mass and majesty of moun- 
tains, and that all the engravings and paintings and 
even pretended photographs of mountains are akin 
to the politics of the moon ! What shall I say to such 
a man ? Perhaps this : "My friend, take your jour- 
ney nine hundred miles southwestward." And if he 
takes my advice, and arrives at midnight in the city 
of Denver, and having slept until morning, goes 
out on the piazza of his hotel and looks around 
him, — now is the time to reason with him about 
mountains; for, looking away southward and west- 
ward and northwestward, Pike's Peak and Gray's 
Peak, and fifty other peaks of God's eternal hills 
confront him. Now ask him if he believes in moun- 
tains. 

Above all the night of man's ignorance, above all 
the storms of his sin, above all the mists of his doubt 
and unbelief, the eternal hills of God lift themselves 
for evermore, jeweled, sunlit, and eternal. I wish 



Four Great Religious Certainties. it 

to point out to you Pour Mountain Peaks of Relig- 
ious Certainty. 

I. First among these, led by the greatest of men 
and the grandest of apostles, I point out to you God ; 
the truth of a personal God; the fundamental con- 
cept of all religion, the underlying bed-rock of all 
these epistles, and of all this Book. This apostle 
generally begins his epistles by announcing himself 
"Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of 
God." I say this is the fundamental concept of all 
religious belief, and assert concerning it, moreover, 
that it is the great and manifestly felt need at once 
of philosophy and of the human heart. 

Of the intellectual part of this need I find evi- 
dence in the attitude of some of the scientific seekers 
after truth, who, after their farthest excursions into 
the regions of the scientifically known, come back 
many a time with the awe-struck mien of men who 
have heard the sound of majestic footsteps which 
they cannot trace, and the rustle of royal robes 
whose wearer is unknown to them. 

The necessary philosophical conceptions of in- 
finite space, and of eternal duration, find adequate 
answer only in the idea of that august Being 
"who inhabiteth eternity." And yet Agnostics 
speak of Him only as "the Unknowable," thus 



12 



Religious Certainties. 



going, in their impertinent assumptions of univer- 
sal knowledge, lower than their cousins in ancient 
Athens, who did indeed erect altars to "the unknown 
God," but who never had the effrontery to speak of 
Him as "the Unknowable." David has drawn their 
picture to the life. Far be it from me to speak a 
single severe word concerning any honest and 
pained and seeking doubter. But as to these all- 
knowing and confidently-asserting doubters, I think 
David has drawn them to the life when he says, 
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God," 
as though only a fool could say it, and he only in 
his heart. And then he finishes the picture by say- 
ing, "They are corrupt; they have done abominable 
works." Of course, such men want no God, and, in 
their hearts, they say there is no God. 

Surely Lord Bacon was not mean in philosophy, 
and he was mighty in logic, and he says : "I would 
rather believe all the fables of the Talmud and the 
Koran than that this universal frame is without a 
mind. A little philosophy inclineth man's heart to 
atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth man back 
to religion." The great want of the brain of man 
is God. But O, if this be the want of the mind, how 
intensely is it the want of the pained, aching, break- 
ing, broken heart of the race ! "O that I knew where 



Four Great Reugious Certainties. 13 

.■ I might find Him ! O that I might come even to His 
seat !" "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, 

: so panteth my soul after Thee, O God." "I thirst for 
God, for the living God. When shall I come and 
appear before God ?" 

Augustine put it truly : "Thou hast made man for 
Thee, and he is disquieted until he returns to Thee." 

Now, to this immense need, what is the Divine 
answer? O ye seekers after fundamental truth in 
the realms of matter and of mind, come this way ; 
pillow your aching minds and hearts on the bosom of 
infinite Love; listen to the Book. What says it? 
Where shall I listen? To the first verse : "In the be- 
ginning, God." What a mighty satisfaction to right 
reason there is in this sublime postulate, "In the be- 
ginning, God !" "God created." "God said, Let there 
be light; and there was light." A personal God, 
creating, speaking; this is the fundamental need of 
all philosophy ; also of the aching heart of the race. 
So you shall find that the one effort of the Book is 
to satisfy this one need of the race. Open it at its 
earliest page and follow it down, and through all 
its books, be they history, poetry, prophecy, archae- 
ology, biography, epistle, no matter what, you shall 
find the one revelation to be the satisfaction of man's 
one need — God. 



14 Reugious Certainties. 



Moses was sent to deliver God's ancient people, v 
and said, "They will not believe me; they will ask, 
'Who sent you ?' " The answer simply was, "Go tell 
them, / am hath sent me unto you." The one want 
of Israel was God. Elijah confronts the prophets 
of Baal and of the grove, eight hundred and fifty. 
They call upon Baal from morn until noon, and from 
noon until the hour of the evening sacrifice; they 
cut themselves with knives and lancets; but there 
is no answer. Then the prophet of the living God 
builds up the broken-down altar, puts the flesh of a 
bullock on it, pours on it nine barrels of water, and 
then simply prays, "O Lord, let it be known this day 
that Thou art God;" that is all. That is all Israel 
needed. 

Hezekiah receives an insulting letter from Sen- 
nacherib, and knows that Sennacherib tells truly 
what his fathers have wrought in the nations round 
about. He spreads out the letter before the Lord, 
and simply says, "O Lord, what this man says is 
true; but, O Lord, let it be known that Thou art 
God." One swing of the sword of one angel of the 
living God; one hundred and eighty-five thousand 
corpses, and Israel triumphant ! 

Come down to the time of David : "O Lord, Thou 
hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." 



Four Great Religious Certainties. 15 

"Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none 
upon earth that I desire besides Thee : Thou art the 
strength of my heart, and my portion forever." So 
I say, the one want of man, and the one revelation 
of the Book, is God. 

II. Close beside this mountain peak of religious 
certainty I see another. At first glance it looks a 
little lower. But walk about them both, and climb 
upon them, and study them, and you shall see that 
they are of the same height. Christ! God in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself ; He, con- 
cerning whom this great apostle says, "I count all 
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge 
of Christ Jesus, my Lord!" 

I must speak a few words concerning the his- 
toric Christ, and also concerning the omnipotent, 
ever-living, indwelling Christ. 

Concerning the historic Christ mark this intro- 
ductory statement; no fact is isolated; that is, no 
thing and no event. Each is part of all; each 
is woven into the mesh of circumstances, and 
can not be taken out without deranging the 
whole. A single acorn implies the universe. For, 
in order to this one acorn an oak with its roots, 
trunk, boughs, branches, twigs, leaves. In order 



1 6 Reugious Certainties. 



to this, the earth, with the various elements of the 
soil, the rain, the sunshine ; the sun, the solar system, 
the visible universe. One acorn implies all this. 

So each event is part of all, and is verified by its 
place in the general system of things. About three 
years ago the tallest erection of man on the surface of 
this planet was dedicated to its permanent use in the 
capital of this nation ; taller than the pyramids, taller 
than the Cologne cathedral spires, piercing the clouds 
at 555 feet from the ground. Now, why was it built ? 
To celebrate that illustrious man concerning whom 
the greatest of living Englishmen says, "If I were 
shown a number of pedestals for the historic char- 
acters most celebrated for nobility and purity, and 
one was pointed out higher than all the rest, and I 
were called upon to name the fittest occupant of that 
pedestal, I would at any time within the last forty- 
five years have said, as I would now say, George 
Washington." So says Mr. Gladstone. Now, why? 
How do I know there ever was such a man? Ask 
that boy of sixteen, "How do you know there ever 
was such a man as George Washington?" "Why, 
how do I know, sir ? How do I know ? That monu- 
ment proves it ; the city in which it stands, and which 
bears his name, proves it; this nation, of which he 
was the father, proves it ; this world proves it ; it is 



Four Great Religious Certainties. 17 

a different sort of a world, and a better world, be- 
cause he lived in it." 

Now, suppose I should ask, not a boy of six- 
teen brought up here in America, or even in 
Christendom, but suppose that an intellectual and 
highly-educated Chinaman were set down by a 
miracle on this bright afternoon here on Broadway ; 
that he had never heard of the name of the Lord 
Jesus Christ until this hour; and, coming with the 
throng, had found his way into this building, and 
in yonder seat had watched this scene up to this 
moment, and had heard these songs and prayers; 
and that I had been able, in the space of one brief 
hour, to unfold to him what is the thought of the 
Christian world concerning the meaning of this 
Book, and of this other book, in which the thoughts 
of the first are wrought into poetry and set to 
music; and that during such a wonderful hour of 
revelation he should have passed in his thoughts 
from an unknowing Chinaman to a knowing and 
thoughtful Christian, suppose that then I should 
ask him, "Was there ever such a person as the 
Lord Jesus Christ on the face of the earth?" what 
would be his answer ? O ! methinks he would say, 
"Send that man to the lunatic asylum." 

Well, have we not an anniversary dearer to the 
2 



18 Religious Certainties. 



heart of America than the 226. of February ; dearest 
of all anniversaries to the heart of England, and of 
Ireland, and of Scotland ; growing dearer every year 
to the heart of China, and of India, and of Africa ; 
the 25th of December! And why? Why is it that 
the millions of the children of many lands look to it 
as the brightest, merriest day of all the year, and 
that parents and children and friends make it a day 
of sweetest congratulations and richest gifts, unless 
the manger-cradled Babe of Bethlehem was actually 
born, and really died and rose again and went up 
into heaven? 

Archbishop Whately wrote a tract which I wish 
every Christian, and especially every Christian min- 
ister, would read, entitled, "Historic Doubts Concern- 
ing Napoleon," in which he shows conclusively that 
on all the principles on which German neologists 
have ever called in question the historic character of 
the four Gospels, you can prove that Napoleon never 
lived. And, indeed, it were easier to bow out Water- 
loo than Calvary. 

I pass on, however, for I will not pause for any 
extended argument before this Christian audience 
about the historic Christ ; but let us glance a moment 
at the ever-living, omnipotent, indwelling Christ, 
and trace His ascending track, from its nadir to 



Four Great Reugious Certainties. 19 



its zenith, from the tomb of Joseph to the highest 
heaven, where God crowns Him, and angels and 
saints fall at His feet ; and see how He justifies both 
of His own wondrous sayings : "Father, I will that 
they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me 
where I am," and "Lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world ;" enabling us to sing : 

" One family, we dwell in Him, 
One Church above, beneath ; 
Though now divided by the stream — 
The narrow stream, of death." 

Who is He? O, suppose that He were now to 
come in at yonder door, and take this place, and, 
standing before us in meek self-evidence — for we 
will never need to be introduced to Him — should 
say, as He said to His disciples, "Whom do men 
say that I, the Son of man, am?" O, if I might 
be your joyful spokesman, I would tell Him, "O 
blessed Christ, the world has not forgotten Thee; it 
is full of Thee; biographies of Thee are in all li- 
braries." "But whom do men say that I am?" If 
my tongue did not cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
I would say, "Some say Thou art a myth, a fancy 
portrait, and thus that a myth has changed the face 
of the world." And then suppose that He should 



2o Reugious Certainties. 



demand of us, "But whom say ye that I am ?" O, if 
again I might be your happy spokesman, on bended 
knees and with streaming eyes I would cry, "Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God, Thyself 
very man and very God." For has He not wrought 
this greatest of miracles, that He has outlived Him- 
self, and enshrined His love on earth ? 

O, the grave, the grave ! Why do men dread it 
so? Not, thank God, for what lies beyond it — 
through the infinite grace of Jesus Christ we may 
have the victory over that — but because it kills men 
so dead to this world, because it buries them out of 
sight, and presently out of mind, because it drives 
them away into an awful earthly oblivion. Who 
cares anything now for Julius Caesar? Who cares 
anything now for the great Napoleon? And yet, 
when the old men in this congregation to-day were 
little boys, Napoleon was in the height of his power, 
and his every step shook Europe and the world. 
Now, after less than three generations, even French- 
men go to the most magnificent mausoleum on earth, 
in the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, as a mere holi- 
day pastime. They laugh and chatter over the ashes 
of the great Napoleon. But O, there is one grave 
whose ashes have never grown cold — nay, there were 
never any ashes in it, and that is the glory of it — the 



Four Great Religious Certainties. 21 

tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. There is one Name 
that seemed to be going out in darkness as well as in 
blood, which has grown bigger and bigger from that 
hour until now, and now fills the earth and the heav- 
ens. Why? I will tell you why. Because of the 
character of Him who bears it. Nothing else. 

In the fourth century Julian the Apostate 
made the last great and persistent effort to re- 
place Christianity by the old classic polytheism. He 
was one of the astutest statesmen and one of the 
mightiest warriors of the later empire. One of his 
orators, Libanius by name, said one day to a humble 
and despised Christian, "What is the Galilean car- 
penter doing now ?" And this humble and despised 
Christian had the wit and grace to answer, "The 
Galilean carpenter is building a coffin." It was only 
a few months before the coffin was done, and in it 
was laid the form of Julian the Apostate, and with it 
the last effort to revive the old polytheism. 

Such carpentry has been going on ever since. It 
is about a century and a half since Voltaire, intoxi- 
cated with the incense of the French nation, said, 
"The Almighty will see fine sport in France within 
twenty years," and he said also, "Before the end of 
the eighteenth century Christianity will be a thing of 
the past." Well, the Galilean carpenter was then 



22 Reugious Certainties. 



building another coffin, and soon it was done ; and in 
it was laid the form of the silly Voltaire, and beside 
him the corpse of the old French monarchy. The 
house in which he uttered his foolish prediction has 
long been a depository of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society; and Christianity did, indeed, become 
more grandly than ever a thing of the past, but its 
real empire is in the future. 

It is within the easy recollection of many of us in 
middle life that the most contemptible of recent 
monarchs, the Nebuchadnezzar of modern nations, 
Napoleon the Little, rose up in the pride of his power 
and said: "Is not this great Paris, which the first 
Napoleon built of brick and which I have turned to 
marble? Is not this great France which exists for 
the glory of the Napoleonic dynasty? I will water 
my horses in the German Rhine and the hoofs of my 
cavalry shall clatter through the streets of Berlin." 
And the pope patted him on the back and said, "Well 
purposed, good and loyal son of the Church ; go and 
do this, and the blessing of God and of the pope shall 
be on thee." Six weeks, Sedan. Another coffin was 
done, built by the Galilean carpenter, and in it was 
laid the contemptible form of the modern Nebuchad- 
nezzar, and beside him the temporal power of the 
pope never to rise again. "The Galilean carpenter" 



Four Great Reugious Certainties. 23 

has quite the habit of building coffins for His ene- 
mies and weaving crowns of immortal amaranth for 
His friends. 

Who is He? "Thou are the Christ, the Son of 
the living God." Thyself very man and very God. 

III. The next step to which the great apostle 
leads us, in the text I have read, brings us before an- 
other mountain peak of religious certainty : — O how 
the sinful world loves to look that way : Salvation ! 
God ! Christ ! God in Christ ! Salvation ! Salva- 
tion by Christ ! 

You know the value of the testimony of experts, 
and that in many great civil suits advocates are wont 
to bring forward in the crisis of the trial some ex- 
pert, a man who by his natural ability, and his spe- 
cial studies, and his life-long practice of some profes- 
sion, has more knowledge 'and a wiser judgment 
concerning the case in hand than the average man. 
Now, brethren, sisters, and friends, I want to bring 
you to-day an expert in this business of salvation, a 
man who knows all about it. And in enumerating 
his qualities I have this first to say : I verily think he 
is the greatest man the great God ever made ; greater 
than Burke, greater than Webster, greater than 
Caesar or Alexander; with a marvelous brain, and 
with a more marvelous heart, if that be possible; a 



24 Religious Certainties. 



very well-educated man. Undersized and homely, 
his enemies said; but don't let that distress you; 
Isaac Watts was an undersized man, and John Wes- 
ley weighed but one hundred and nineteen pounds. 
But the enemies of this man had to admit that his 
"letters" were "weighty and powerful." I should 
think they were, for they have changed the religious 
thought of the world. This man was originally and 
for a long time a hater of Jesus Christ, and a vigor- 
ous opponent of Christianity ; very well taught in the 
Old Testament Scriptures, with all advantages for 
recognizing the truth as it is in Jesus, and yet he 
came to hate Him. He stood by, a brilliant young 
man, holding the clothes of those who stoned 
Stephen, the first martyr, and he himself went about 
the business of persecuting Christians and of putting 
them into prison. He liked it so well, that finding 
out a new nest of heretics in Damascus, he went to 
the chief priests for authority to exterminate them. 
So skillful was he in his plans about it that he said, 
"Write in women as well as men." And in that he 
was wise ; for woman has always been the truest 
lover of Jesus Christ, and you never can root out 
Christianity anywhere until you grind under your 
iron heel the heart of woman as well as the brain 
of man. 



Four Great Religious Certainties. 25 

And having this bloody commission, this insanely 
mad persecutor of the early Church started for Da- 
mascus and got there — no, he did not; another man 
got there. He was made over on the way, so that his 
very name had to be changed. He started Saul; 
he got there Paul. And from that splendid hour, 
until his death thirty years later, his head severed 
from his body by the sword of Nero, he insisted on 
being chained to Jesus' chariot wheels, the devoted 
slave of this blessed Christ, and yet declared that this 
service was perfect and joyful freedom. Ladies and 
gentlemen, the Apostle Paul ! 

I have to catechise him before you concerning his 
impressions about salvation in its outset, in its prog- 
ress, and in its outcome. I want you to notice his 
picture of salvation. It is a remarkable picture. 
He says, long after this scene on the way to Damas- 
cus, — silvered with years, every power of his nature 
developed and tested in his conflicts with sin, on be- 
half of Jesus Christ and His Holy Gospel — he says 
years and years after that: "I count all things but 
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord. I count them all but dross that I 
may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having 
my own righteousness, but the righteousness of God 
through Christ by faith." And now mark his pic- 



26 Reugious Certainties. 



ture: "That I may know Him;" to know Him is 
the joy of earth and heaven. O, that is blessed. 
"And the power of His resurrection." By which 
he does not mean here, the power of God in 
raising Jesus from the dead. Turn a moment 
to Ephesians i, 18-20, and you will see exactly 
what he means. "The eyes of your understand- 
ing being enlightened; that ye may know what 
is the hope of His calling, and what the riches 
of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and 
what is the exceeding greatness of His power to 
us-ward who believe, according to the working of 
His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, 
when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him 
at His own right hand in the heavenly places." 

So you see He means by "the power of His resur- 
rection," the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in 
the human soul. Do n't you see ? "That I may know 
Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fel- 
lowship of His sufferings." That is awful, for He 
was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 
"Being made conformable unto His death." O, that 
is terrible, for He died on a cross, between two 
thieves. And that is Paul's picture of salvation. It 
looks like the beginning of a climax, and then in the 
end a terrible anticlimax. 



Pour Great Reugious Certainties. 27 



But consider a little what other sort of salvation 
would have answered for that great, bad man, that 
chief of sinners, who claimed the bad eminence of 
being the bellwether of Satan's flock. Now, what 
will answer for him except a big, strong, stalwart, 
all-sided, magnificent salvation? Not only was he 
a great sinner, but a great sufferer, for thirty years 
dying daily. What would any salvation amount to 
for Paul that did not have a place in it for the "thorn 
in the flesh," that did not have a place in it for 
Nero's sword, that did not have a place in it for 
"perils among robbers," for "perils in the wilder- 
ness," for "perils by shipwreck," worst of all, for 
"perils among false brethren" ? So, you see, no other 
salvation would answer for Paul, that great sinner, 
that great worker, that great sufferer, but a big, 
round-about, stalwart salvation. 

Let me ask him a question or two. "Paul, what 
would you say to a salvation by rose-water?" "Give 
me blood." "Blood?" "Yes, God forbid that I 
should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and 
I unto the world." It is a great, strong, sanguinary 
business with Paul, salvation is. "Well, Paul, what 
would you say to a salvation by culture, by develop- 
ing all that is good and noble in human nature, and 



28 Religious Certainties. 

gradually repressing the bad?" "I must be a new 
creature ; I am a dead man and must have a resur- 
rection ; I have got to be made over ; and, thank God, 
I have been." That is the salvation Paul got the 
notion of at the outset. 

Did he keep up this idea ? Was that the sort of 
salvation that he exhibited all the way along? Let 
us see. I remarked that he had had many troubles, 
great troubles, and I now add that the salvation 
he got was not a salvation out of these troubles, but 
a victory over them. He had a thorn in the flesh 
that pierced him very sorely. I am so glad that 
commentators can not agree about that. One says it 
was ophthalmia ; another, dyspepsia ; and they tell you 
a dozen things. If any one of them could prove what 
he says, then only that class of sufferers would ever 
get the full comfort of it ; but now it belongs to every- 
body. That thorn pierced Paul sorely, and he prayed 
"three times" to have it taken away. That means 
three hundred or three thousand times. That means 
again and again, and again and again ; and God at 
last gave him a glorious answer: "Yes, Paul, I 
know ; I will answer more than you ask, but not in 
the way you ask. I will press in that thorn, and push 
it to the heart, and quick and bone and marrow ; but 



Four Great Reugious Certainties. 29 

I will also transform it so that you will proclaim to 
all the ages that it is the best thing you ever had." 

Now, ask "Paul the Aged," sitting there in the 
prison: "What is your peculiar treasure?" "Well, 
that shipwreck was a very glorious time, and those 
'perils among false brethren' now are very glorious 
in the recollection of them ; but this is my diamond, 
this thorn in the flesh; it is a treasure, a peculiar 
treasure, for by it I found that when I was weak, 
then I was strong, and that God's grace was suffi- 
cient for me." 

In sundry epistles he sums up his tribulations, 
and you find him loaded down with troubles 
to the water's edge, chin deep in tribulation, 
and yet never drowned. You can not imagine Paul 
an unhappy man. This is one of his summings 
up : "Our light affliction which is but for a moment, 
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory." Who says that? You may say, 
"Why, I am sure it is some merry school-girl, leading 
a gay life among butterflies and flowers." No, no. 
This is not a feather flying on the air, "our light 
affliction which is but for a moment." He sums up 
a thirty years' daily death in that. What does he 
say about it?. I will give you the closer rendering 



30 Religious Certainties. 



of the Greek : "The momentary lightness of our 
affliction worketh for us an eternal burden of glory, 
with hyperbole upon hyperbole." That is what he 
says. Now, can you think of him as an unhappy 
man ? 

Well, does he hold out so? The outcome is, of 
course, the test. Does he hold out so? Two years 
ago I was in that dark, deep-underground dungeon 
in the Mamertine prison, one of the well-authenti- 
cated places near the Capitol, in Rome, where Paul 
actually spent a large part of the last two years of 
his life, with a chain around his leg fastened to a 
soldier, or to a stone pillar. How does it look to 
him at the last ? We have one of his last letters pre- 
served to us. I look into that prison. I see the old 
man, grave, dignified, serene, writing his last letter. 
His face glows with rapture, and his pen almost 
catches fire in the speed of its flight. "Paul, may I 
see what you are writing?" "Yes." "I am now 
ready to be offered." His last words. Listen. "I 
am now ready to be offered, and the time of my de- 
parture is at hand." "I think you are right. It is 
to-day, or to-morrow, Paul." "I have fought a 
good fight." "Yes, you have." "I have finished my 
course." "Well, yes, you have, and you know it." 
"I have kept the faith." How glad I am he kept the 



Pour Great Reugious Certainties 31 



faith! What another sort of a world this would 
have been if that one man had let the faith go ! It 
would not have gone out of the world, for it had 
many other witnesses even then. But I am so glad 
that this man kept the faith. 

"I have kept the faith ; henceforth" — "Well, now, 
what is it, Paul? What is the outlook?" " 'Hence- 
forth a crown of righteousness,' not of mercy; God 
gives it to me of right; He is 'faithful and just to 
forgive' me my sins, and to cleanse me from all un- 
righteousness.' 'Henceforth there is laid up for me 
a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the right- 
eous Judge, shall give me at that day' " — "O, Paul, 
do you see but one crown? Have I any chance?" 
"Wait till I finish my sentence. 'And not to me only, 
but unto all them also that love His appearing.' " He 
saw that day a crown apiece for us all. "And is that 
your outlook ?" "Yes." "Now, Paul, do n't you see 
anything else? (for I see a Roman soldier whetting 
his sword just outside the city gate). And don't 
you hear anything? (for I hear the crunching of 
the bones of Christians by lions just out there). 
Listen." "Well, since you speak of it, I do see a 
light gleaming out through the gates of pearl and 
over the walls of jasper; and since you speak of it, 
I do hear 'the voice of harpers harping with their 



32 Reugious Certainties. 



harps' to welcome me home : but the great thing is 
the crown of righteousness." 

Wonderful man ! "Henceforth a crown." Now, 
I am very glad that before this epistle is finished this 
apostle writes a promise which found me thirty 
years ago, "My God shall supply all your need, ac- 
cording to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." 
Paul's God was a great God and a good God. He 
made the greatest of men the grandest of apostles, 
the chief of sinners a glorious saint, the very sorest 
of sufferers a triumphant victor. Commend me to 
the God of Paul. 

IV. Look again along your mountain range. 
God, Christ, God in Christ; salvation, salvation by 
Christ. Once more, only once more; immortality. 
Immortality in Christ, and through Christ, and with 
Christ. This is the last point to which our text 
leads us, and here it stops ; "That I may know Him 
and the power of His resurrection, and the fellow- 
ship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto 
His death, if by any means I might attain unto the 
resurrection of the dead." I said immortality, and 
not resurrection, because I think, on careful examina- 
tion, that this verse does not refer specifically to what 
we term the resurrection of the body. That is referred 
to in many other places ; among the rest, as I believe, 



Four Great Reugious Certainties. 33 

in the last verses of this same chapter, from which I 
read, "We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
who shall change our vile body, that it may be fash- 
ioned like unto His glorious body, according to the 
working whereby He is able even to subdue all 
things unto Himself." 

I am old-fashioned enough to have repeated from 
boyhood until now, and never with more intense con- 
viction than in the last few years, that phrase in the 
grand old creed of universal Christendom which has 
come down to us in substance from the very time 
of the apostles, "I believe in the resurrection of the 
body." And yet I say, I do not think that here in 
this text it is that which is specifically taught as it 
is elsewhere, but that glorious outcome of felicity, 
when soul and body reunited shall bear His glorious 
image. 

So I announce for my last topic, for a very brief 
discussion, Immortality. I am, of course, perfectly 
aware that I can only touch, in the closing para- 
graphs of a single discourse, a theme that needs and 
has had treatment in a multitude of volumes. But 
I just want to fasten your sight and your memory 
on this fourth mountain peak of religious certainty, 
that it may stand before you in all the coming years. 
Concerning it let me advert to these two topics only ; 

3 



34 Religious Certainties. 



the instinct of immortality which is within us, and 
the sense of eternal things which sometimes comes 
to the departing spirit. I say instinct of immortal- 
ity, not meaning by that to imply that the natural 
argument for immortality is strong enough. I do 
not believe that. The ancients made a great many 
beautiful guesses ; they entertained pleasant hopes ; 
but they had no steady belief. Socrates said: "I 
hope I am now going to good men, though this I 
would not take it upon me positively to affirm." And 
Cicero says : "Which of these two things is true 
[referring to life and to no life after death], God 
only knows, and which is the most probable is a very 
great question. When I read, I assent ; but when I 
lay down the book, all the assent vanishes." 

Seneca says : "Immortality, however desirable, is 
rather promised than proved by these great men." I 
think Pliny, with his severer words, came nearer the 
common belief of the old classic nations : "To all men 
after their last day remains the same state which was 
before their first day, nor is there after death any 
other sensation, either in body or soul, than there was 
before birth; but this same vanity of ours projects 
itself into the future, and in the very hour of death 
falsely represents to itself a future life." Let these 
few words justify the assertion that the ancient na- 



Four Great Religious Certainties. 35 

tions, foremost in culture and in philosophic knowl- 
edge, had no clear belief in immortality. They 
guessed, they wished, they hardly dared to hope. 
But Jesus Christ "hath brought life and immortality 
to light." What was faint even among the Hebrew 
people, what among them was at the very best in 
twilight, Jesus took and brought to light through the 
Gospel ; and He did this, not by merely overcoming 
death. O, brothers, do not represent to yourselves 
death as a field of battle, in which a bloodstained 
conqueror stands with his foot on the neck of a fallen 
and bleeding enemy. No, no. He has cleared the 
field ; there is neither enemy nor weapon left. "Jesus 
Christ" — listen to the word — "hath abolished death, 
and brought life and immortality to light." And 
ever since that, I think the instinct of immortality has 
been universal. The rising sun of righteousness has 
shot gleams of light around the world, and every- 
where now men feel the stirring of this mighty in- 
stinct of another life. 

"The instinct of immortality," did I say? Here 
is a mountaineer who never has seen a ship in his life, 
nor any sea or lake. Imagine him suddenly trans- 
ported to Boston, and in the early morning to go 
down into a shipyard, and to find a great ship in the 
stocks, just ready to be launched; and to begin to 



36 Reugious Certainties. 



make his observations. "What a big house this is, 
and what a queer house, with its roof at the bottom 
and its floor on top; and what a long house and a 
narrow house I" He sees a ladder and climbs up to 
the deck, and walks about, and sees the mighty masts 
and the ropes and chains. He sees the stairs, and 
goes down into the cabin, and says, "Yes, it is a 
house ; here are sofas and chairs and tables. It is a 
house, and what a big house, what a strange house !" 
And then again, walking about on the deck, and 
seeing that one end of the ship is already in the 
water, he says to himself, "This house was never 
built to stay here ;" and even as he says it, the master 
comes out with fifty men at his beck. He gives the 
word, they knock away the props, and the great 
house starts and leaps into the water. And as it 
glides forth into the harbor the mountaineer says to 
those around, "I said so ; I said it was never built to 
stay on land." 

Now, take a man, any man. Take Matthew Simp- 
son, seventy-seven years ago a little red-haired baby 
in the arms of an Ohio mother, just one more baby to 
all other eyes, but supremely beautiful to hers; and 
then an awkward youth, keen-minded and hungry for 
all knowledge, but bent in the shoulders and gaunt. 
He comes to early manhood, and begins to feel the 



Pour Great Religious Certainties. 37 

strange thrill of that divinely given impulse, which 
those who have felt it never can forget, which said to 
his soul, "Go, preach My Gospel." And he said to 
himself at once : "I never can, and that for four rea- 
sons ; everybody says I am ungainly and awkward as 
a declaimer, and my voice is thin and squeaky, and I 
can't commit anything perfectly to memory, and, 
what is worst of all, it will break my poor mother's 
heart." He tried to hide it awhile, and then, when 
he could keep it no longer, he went to his mother 
with the terrible story. With downcast heart he told 
her his almost guilty secret; and she said to him, 
with glowing eyes and bounding heart, "My dear 
son, I have been waiting to hear you say this ever 
since you were born." 

Then he put the silver trumpet of the Gospel to 
his lips, and blew it ; and the town listened, and the 
county listened, and the state listened, and the na- 
tion listened, and the world listened. And for fifty 
years he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to more 
persons than any other man who has lived in this 
century. And then, just four years ago this month, 
he stood up before the assembled Church in its Gen- 
eral Conference in Philadelphia on the last day of the 
session, and spread out his thin hands, and pro- 
nounced over us the apostolic benediction. And in 



38 Reugious Certainties. 



seventeen days he was not. Where is he? Is he 
anywhere? Sighing winds, have you heard his 
voice ? Blazing stars, have you seen him in his lofty 
flight? Where is he? Matthew Simpson was never 
built to stay here. He has sailed out on the ocean of 
the eternities. And you and I shall. God has made 
us for another sort of locomotion than these poor 
feet can carry on. 

One more word. I spoke of the sense of eternal 
things which sometimes comes to the departing 
spirit. Now, if there is present any spiritualist tech- 
nically so-called, or necromancer, pretending to hold 
communion by the tipping of tables with the spirits 
of the departed, I have to say to him that if he thinks 
to get any comfort out of what I am about to say, 
he is mistaken. I believe all that sort of thing is 
nine-tenths self-deceit and one-tenth devil ; and I am 
not sure but that in that statement I give Satan 
rather more credit than is due him. But while I have 
no faith in these things, I do suspect, I do suppose, I 
do think — you see I do not use the word I would in 
repeating the Apostles' Creed, I do "believe," since 
it is not a matter of absolute demonstration — but I do 
confidently trust that God opens the gates a little way 
now and then before the saints get in, and lets the 



Four Great Religious Certainties. 39 

glory out, and lets the angels out, and lets the saints 
out, to welcome those who are going home. 

Have not I myself skirted the shores of that eter- 
nal sea ? Did not I, six years ago, stand on its very 
margin and hear the washing of the silver spray? 
And Thou, O blessed Christ, and I know very well 
the secrets of those triumphant days, whose glories 
I shall tell at last in the better land. 

But there are facts within the knowledge of you 
all that have brought this truth home to you. Let 
two incidents suffice by way of illustration. When I 
was a young pastor in Brooklyn, just thirty years 
ago, I had in my congregation for several years a 
dear old saint of God, the maiden sister of Nicholas 
Snethen, of blessed memory. O what a saint she 
was! And every week, twice almost always, on 
given days, I went to her upper room on Fulton 
Avenue, and talked with her about the kingdom 
just coming to her immortal vision ; and the young 
pastor was greatly helped and confirmed in the faith 
every time he went. One Thursday afternoon one of 
her nieces, after my class-meeting, said to me, "Aunt 
is in trouble, and would like to have you call." I 
had not time to ask her what was the matter, so 
many were coming up to shake hands. But I said 



40 Religious Certainties. 



I would be there in a few minutes ; and in twenty 
minutes I was at her bedside. And as I walked up 
the avenue I asked myself what last hold the old 
enemy could have got on that mature and triumphant 
saint. I could not make it out. 

I came to her room, stepped to her bedside, and 
concluded at once that it was a curious sort of 
trouble, for her face shone as though a passing angel 
had dropped a smile upon it. I took her by the hand 
and said, "Mother Snethen, your niece said you were 
in trouble. What is it?" "Well," said she, "I would 
have been glad if my Lord would have permitted me 
to spend my remaining days on earth praying for the 
Church and for my friends, but / can not pray any 
more/' She had the same experience as that 
sainted man of God — the Rev. Charles J. Clark, 
D. D., of the Maine Conference — that dear brother 
who sat at the secretary's table there on the first days 
of this General Conference, and who went to his re- 
ward two weeks ago to-day. When his faithful wife 
knelt and said, "Shall I pray for you?" he sweetly 
answered, "Prayer for me is done." "I can not pray 
any more," said this old saint in Brooklyn thirty 
years ago. Then said I, "Let me pray for you." I 
had just begun, but there was no more praying to be 



Four Great Reugious Certainties. 41 



done there. I had scarcely said the first word when 
she said, "Hallelujah," and I said "Hallelujah," and 
her niece said "Hallelujah," and heaven seemed to 
answer back "Hallelujah." And so it lasted four 
days, and there was no more praying to be done 
there. I said, "If God pleases, Mother Snethen, 
to let you begin the employments of heaven 
now, never mind; it is all right." During 
those four days she would say, "Now, don't 
you hear anything in particular in this room?" 
"No, do you?" "Yes." "What do you hear?" 
"The angels of God singing my welcome home." 
And then she would say, "Do n't you see anything 
there, right there?" "No, do you?" "Yes." "What 
do you see?" "I see the angels of God waiting to 
carry me home." "All imagination," some blear- 
eyed doubter may say ! A sanhedrim of philosophers 
can not prove that it was not the dawn of the eternal 
vision. 

In South Africa a few years ago lived a bishop of 
the Church of England (I understand that one of the 
bishops of that Church sits beside me at the present 
time on this platform), an honored man of God. He 
was a bachelor. His maiden sister was his dear com- 
panion and caretaker. For years they toiled there in 



42 Religious Certainties. 



that unpromising field, remembered by every packet 
that took back letters to the home land, and always 
spoken of as Charley and Liz. They both died there. 
Years later one of the sisters under the home roof- 
tree came to her last sickness. They thought she still 
had a month to live, or at least many days. She was 
wandering slowly and sweetly toward the golden 
shore, when one day she turned her head suddenly 
and said, "O there 's Charley, and there 's L,iz !" and 
a film passed over her eyes, and she was not, for God 
had taken her. Who shall say they were not there ? 
Methinks it were just like my dear Savior to have 
sent them. 

I suppose that three out of four of the people in 
this house to-day who have reached the age of forty 
years have seen similar cases, in which such evidence 
came to them as they never can be dispossessed of, 
that heaven and earth met and touched around the 
soul of some departing pilgrim before the bruised 
feet had left the thorny path of time. 

Thus I have pointed out to you to-day, beloved 
friends, four great religious certainties : God, Christ, 
Salvation, Immortality. Are these things true? O, 
ye venerable men of God, on the platform and else- 
where in the house, some of whom began to preach 



Four Great Religious Certainties. 43 

these things before I was born, are these things 
true? If not, in God's name stand up and say so, 
and tell the people that a crazed brain has been mis- 
leading them to-day. Nay, ye stand not up; these 
things are true. Well, then, O ye ministers of God, 
preach them. Do not dilly-dally with astronomical 
lectures, geological homilies, and philosophical dis- 
quisitions. Preach the Gospel. Tell the people the 
glad story of a risen Christ waiting to save them. 

And if these things are true, O ye who are far 
from God to-day, prodigals wandering from your 
father's house, immersed in sin, caught in the glit- 
tering meshes of skepticism and unbelief, study them 
on your knees, with the open Bible before you. 
Study them, and if you pretend to any faith, live as 
though you believed them ; for verily, besides this 
glorious immortality of which I have told you, there 
is an eternity of shame and perdition, against which 
I warn you. I beg you to-day, turn to God, and seek 
the salvation of your souls. O let every Christian 
heart go up in prayer while I cry to God to give to 
the sons the honor put upon the fathers ! In the 
olden time, while the word of exhortation still lin- 
gered on the preacher's lips, sinners were awakened 
and brought to God. O God, put upon us that honor 



44 ' Reugious Certainties. 



here to-day ! Let every Christian heart send up that 
prayer. And let every sinful heart that has no part 
in the knowledge of this great salvation, understand 
the yearning anxiety of Heaven over the issue of this 
hour, and know that "there is joy in the presence of 
the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." 
O sinner, make the angels and the glorified saints 
and the Divine Redeemer glad to-day! 



II. 



THE FAITH DELIVERED ONCE FOR ALL. 

(Dedication oe the Chapel oe Garrett Bib- 
eicae Institute, Evanston, Iee.., 
May io, 1887.) 

"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto 
you of the common salvation, it was needful for 
me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye 
should earnestly contend for the faith which was 
once delivered unto the saints/' — Jude 3. 

Among the testimonies which the sons of genius, 
in their deep disappointment and bitter want, have 
given to the solitary superiority of the Christian 
faith, I know none more impressive than that of Sir 
Humphrey Davy. His brilliant genius, his practical 
inventiveness, his great talents, his discovery of four 
metals, his fortunate surroundings and his pre-emi- 
nent distinction, conspire to make the entry in his 
later diary very mournful — namely, the two words 
"Very miserable" — and to give profound emphasis 

45 



46 Religious Certainties. 



to his estimate of the Christian faith. He says, "I 
envy no quality of mind or intellect in others, — not 
genius, power, wit or fancy; but if I could choose 
what would be most delightful, and I believe most 
useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief 
to every other blessing ; for it makes life a discipline 
of goodness, creates new hopes when all earthly 
hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the de- 
struction of existence, the most gorgeous of all 
lights; calling in the most delightful visions where 
the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, 
and annihilation." Over against this profound utter- 
ance of that great philosopher at the close of his 
singularly fortunate but unsatisfactory career, place 
the flippant and oft-quoted couplet of the skeptical 
Pope, steeped in infidelity to its core : 

" For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 

As though there were no well-ascertained ground 
and no infallible standard of religious belief; as 
though there were no things found out and made 
clear to Christian thought once and forever; as 
though the great mass of the evangelical Church in 
all ages had found no common substratum of essen- 
tial doctrine; as though the roots of character had 



The: Faith Delivered Once £or Ar.iv. 47 

no vital relation to the fruits of character ; as though 
figs might grow on thistles and sweet waters pour 
forth from bitter fountains. Which of these two 
estimates of the Christian faith commends itself to 
your sober judgment? That of the profound philos- 
opher who finds in a firm religious belief the sheet 
anchor of human safety and hope, or that of the care- 
less and skeptical poet who speaks of "modes of 
faith," as though they deserved no serious attention 
from thoughtful men? 

Surely in this age of doubt, when creeds are so 
laughed to scorn, when theology is so often spoken 
of with contempt and ridicule as though it were 
synonymous with superstition, when catechisms are 
so often trodden under foot, and when so much of 
the current literature carelessly assumes that the old 
dogmas are exploded, and quotes the Scriptures not 
to explain them, but (if that were possible) to ex- 
plain them away, it can not be amiss for us earnestly 
to inquire once more after "the faith once delivered 
to the saints," and in response to this martial sum- 
mons to gird ourselves anew and contend earnestly 
for it with the courage, fidelity, and zeal of good 
soldiers of Jesus Christ. Especially does such a 
train of thought befit an occasion like this, which 
places before our very eyes the demonstration that 



48 Religious Certainties. 



a large branch of the Christian Church — the largest 
branch of the one Church of Christ on this conti- 
nent — thinks it worth while to summon many of the 
young cadets about to be commissioned for this holy 
war, to gather here for years of thorough Biblical 
and theological training. 

I am, of course, not unaware that some Biblical 
critics have called in question the canonicity of the 
epistle from which I have read my text, and also of 
the Second Epistle of St. Peter, which it strongly re- 
sembles, and from which it no doubt largely quotes ; 
but this circumstance need cause us no hesitation 
in choosing this text since the same lesson is taught 
us in many places in epistles universally admitted 
to be canonical. Take as a specimen this in the 
Second Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy: "Hold fast 
the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of 
me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That 
good thing which was committed unto thee keep 
by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." (2 Tim. 
i, 13, 14.) And again: "Thou therefore, my son, be 
strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the 
things that thou hast heard of me among many wit- 
nesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who 
shall be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. ii, 1,2.) 
I have chosen the text because, better than any other 



The Faith Delivered Once for All. 49 

single verse, it sets forth "the faith once delivered 
to the saints/' and sounds out a martial summons 
earnestly to contend for that faith. 

I. Our first endeavor must be to ascertain and 
verify "the faith once for all delivered to the 

SAINTS." 

We have occasion here, as the text leads us, to 
consider (1) the treasure committed to us, (2) the 
casket which contains it, and (3) the custodian of the 
treasure. 

I say first, the treasure. What is it? "The 
faith," that is the phrase. And if you take your New 
Testament and mark it, especially the Epistles, you 
will be surprised to find how many times you come 
to the term "the faith." The word faith is used in 
the New Testament in two very distinct senses ; 
namely, as the saving act of the soul, and as the truth 
on which that act is exercised. By the Savior it is 
always used in the former sense ; by the apostles 
often in the latter. There is very manifest reason 
for this marked difference. Jesus was here visible 
to men, was moving around among them ; and salva- 
tion lay simply in the acceptance of His visible per- 
son as that of the Savior. Just that and nothing 
else. So long as He was visibly present, faith had 
that sense, and that only. He sent forth His seventy 

4 



50 Religious Certainties. 



disciples, but nowhere save to cities and places to 
which He Himself was about to come ; and so His 
summons was, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." To Nico- 
demus and for all men He uttered the sublimest dec- 
laration ever committed to the language of mortals : 
''God so loved the world that He gave His only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might 
not perish, but have everlasting life." 

But He disappeared from the scene, He was lost 
to the view of men; and His apostles went forth to 
preach Him. And how should they preach Him? 
Peter gives us a specimen : "Whom having not seen 
ye love ; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet 
believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full 
of glory; receiving the end of your faith, even the 
salvation of your souls." John, the apostle, leaned 
his head on Jesus' breast, and knew that great heart, 
which had broken on the cross, better than any other 
man that ever lived. But sixty years after, he 
could not point men to the visible Savior as 
John the Baptist had done, and say to them, "Be- 
hold the Lamb of God," and so he wrote about Him 
thus : "That which we have seen and heard declare 
we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with 
us ; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and 



The Faith Delivered Once eor Ael. 51 

with His Son Jesus Christ." "This, then, is the 
message." Thus you perceive that when the Savior 
had disappeared from the eyes of men, salvation lay 
in accepting a message concerning Him in order that 
men might thus come into living union with His 
ever-blessed and saving person. 

So "the faith" is a system of truth. It is a record 
of certain specific facts about the Lord Jesus Christ 
— if you please, a creed. Much as that word is de- 
spised and laughed to scorn, I thoughtfully use it 
and say that "the faith" is necessarily a creed ; and 
I observe that, while within the limits of the Church 
many persons have poured the severest sarcasm on 
this word, every Church on earth worthy of the name 
has a creed, and to a greater or less extent holds to 
its creed and loves its creed. To be sure, there are 
creeds and creeds. Men have built around the great 
citadel of revelation certain outworks of theology 
which may be mere rubbish and worse than rubbish ; 
and it is well for the citadel itself that the enemies 
of Christianity should destroy these. A great deal 
of superserviceable zeal has been exercised in trying 
to defend that citadel. It needs no defense except 
the godly lives of men who illustrate the power and 
the essential truth of the Christianity which Jesus 
taught and which He died to found. 



52 



Religious Certainties. 



To show exactly what we mean by theological 
rubbish, we need not go to the Mother of Abomi- 
nations, and point to the shackles which she has 
bound upon the minds of millions of men. You can 
find ample illustration a great deal nearer home than 
that. The Athanasian creed, worthy of all praise in 
many regards, to be held in everlasting respect for 
its profound teaching of the incarnation of Jesus 
Christ and concerning the Holy Trinity, yet illus- 
trates what I now say. After setting forth these 
fathomless mysteries in most elaborate and meta- 
physical statements, which very few people, not more 
than one man in a hundred of the philosophers and 
divines of the world can possibly understand, it says, 
"This is the Catholic faith ; which faith, except every 
one doth keep whole and undented, without doubt 
he shall perish everlastingly." Now, I never read 
that without thinking of the old lady who sat on the 
front seat at the funeral of Jabez Bunting ; and when 
Dr. Dixon, with the too customary extravagance of 
lamentation on such occasions, mournfully said, 
"Alas, alas, there are no more such men left," the 
old lady looked up with a smile and said, "Thank 
God, that 's a lie." I would not use the same words ; 
but yet as I read the Athanasian creed, and consider 
its terrific comminations, I have in my heart the 



The Faith Delivered Once for Aix. 53 

same feeling. And I do not wonder that the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church in this country at its organ- 
ization definitely and permanently refused to adopt 
the Athanasian creed ; nor that the Church of Eng- 
land Quarterly says concerning it, "Every time that 
creed is read the officiating minister is solemnly 
enunciating that which neither he nor any of his 
hearers believes." 

And yet the faith is ascertainable and verifiable. 
God has put it into the world, and there is somewhat 
to be found somewhere to which no thoughtful 
Christian man can take exception as being the faith, 
the very truth of God. Before I pass on let me re- 
mind you of the other two terms I used besides the 
treasure — the casket and the custodian. The casket, 
what is it? It is that which contains the treasure. 
The treasure, what is it? It is the essential truth 
on which a man must rest in order to his salvation. 
Imagine a diamond, the largest and most brilliant 
ever created, and imagine also that it is a miraculous 
diamond in this respect, that it is an original source 
of light, not merely reflecting the light of the sun, 
but itself a fountain of quenchless radiance. Im- 
agine it is a vase of alabaster, and so pouring forth 
its blazing luster as to make the whole vase pulsate 
and palpitate with light. Such is "the faith" within 



54 " Religious Certainties. 

"the word." The custodian is the Church, the ever- 
lasting succession of Christ's true, living, human wit- 
nesses, who first received this truth from God. The 
truth was delivered to, not invented by man, not 
reasoned out by man's intellect; delivered, handed 
by God to man ; delivered once for all. That is what 
hapax means, once for all. Read your new version, 
and you will find it is "once for all delivered." De- 
livered in its completeness. The same word is used 
in another text that will help us to understand this. 
"It is appointed unto man once to die ;" hapax, once, 
and only once. Such is the divine intent of this 
word. 

Now, I beg you to fasten your thoughts on these 
three statements I have just now made; and let us 
see whether they do not justify the declaration that 
the faith is ascertainable and verifiable — nay, is as- 
certained and verified. And first, I say, this faith 
is delivered, that is, given, by God to men; in part, in 
large part, by God the Son ; and then the remainder, 
in its absolute completeness, by God the Holy Ghost. 
Both these statements I get from the words of God 
the Son. When He was among men He taught 
them; He taught them largely, richly, and abun- 
dantly ; and yet long after He had uttered the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, long after He had uttered most 



The: Faith Delivered Once: for Au,. 55 



of His parables — nay, all His parables — long after 
He had wrought all His miracles and had uttered 
those great discourses of which John gives the rec- 
ord, and John alone ; He came to His valedictory ad- 
dress, and in that He said — I beg you to mark the 
words — "I have many things to say unto you, but 
ye can not bear them now." Still the revelation was 
incomplete ; for He had explicitly told them, "How- 
beit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will 
guide you unto all truth: for He shall not speak of 
Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall 
He speak: and He will show you things to come. 
He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of mine, 
and shall show it unto you." 

This explains the saying of one of the evangel- 
ists who had written one of the richest of the Gospels, 
when he comes to write another book; namely, the 
book of the Acts of the Apostles, in opening which 
he uses these words : "The former treatise have I 
made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to 
do and to teach." "He showed Himself alive after 
His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of 
them forty days, and speaking of the things pertain- 
ing to the kingdom of God." The Gospel of St. 
Luke is only the beginning of the biography of Jesus 
Christ, and so it is with all the four Gospels. Christ 



56 Religious Certainties. 



had only begun His career on earth when He dis- 
appeared from the eyes of men. There might be 
more accurate titles to several of the books of the 
New Testament. It would be more correct to call 
the fifth book of the New Testament, "The Acts of 
the Lord Jesus Christ by His Apostles," and the 
sixth, "The Epistle of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 
Romans by the pen of Paul;" and the last, "The 
Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ to the world 
through the soul of John." I predicate this upon 
His own statement, "I have many other things to tell 
you, but ye can not bear them now. The Holy Ghost 
will teach them to you." And through evangelists 
and apostles, by the Holy Ghost, He put them into 
the world; and we have them now in their com- 
pleteness. 

I say in their completeness, and here comes my 
second thought. Ye ought earnestly to contend for 
the faith once for all delivered unto the saints. Not 
once alone, once for all. Take in that sense. Any 
Greek professor will tell you that is the only sense 
in which hapax is used. The eighteen hundred years 
since the New Testament record was completed have 
been very busy years in the history of the human 
mind — the busiest that it has ever had. The world 
has had a magnificent out-march and development in 



The Faith Delivered Once eor Ale. 57 

matters social, political, scientific, and philosophical ; 
years which in some aspects of them could never be 
repeated if it should stand ten thousand years longer. 
Every generation has climbed up on the shoulders 
of all the generations that have gone before, and 
has peered out restlessly with the whole power of 
the human intellect and the full determination of the 
human will into the regions of matter and of force 
and of mind. Wonderful discoveries and sublime 
advances have been made. But since John laid down 
his pen the whole thinking of the whole world has 
not added the dot of an i nor the cross of a t to the 
moral and religious teaching found in the New Tes- 
tament, in germ at least. Men talk about the Pauline 
theology and the Johannean theology. Why, if one 
of those old apostles could stand forth before the 
world to-day, and hear such adjectives framed upon 
his name, he would indignantly disclaim being any- 
thing but just a receiver and transmitter of the faith 
delivered by God to man. Simply that; no more. 
Did not Paul say to the Galatians, "1 marvel that 
ye are so soon removed from him that called you 
into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which 
is not another ?" And did he not charge them to 
curse any apostle or any angel who should preach 
to them any other gospel than that which they had 



58 Reugious Certainties. 



heard? Did he not say to them: "I certify you, 
brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me 
is not after man: for I neither received it of man, 
neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of 
Jesus Christ ?" John began the last book of the Bible 
with these expressive words : "The Revelation of 
Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew 
unto his servants things which must shortly come 
to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel 
unto His servant John." And at its close He ut- 
tered a terrific commination against any man who 
shall add to or take away from "the words of the 
book of this prophecy." 

This treasure in its casket was "delivered to the 
saints." That is the third thing on which I wish to 
now fasten your attention. It was delivered to the 
saints, to the holy ones, to Christian believers, as 
history clearly shows. It was delivered to an organ- 
ized body of Christian believers; and the Church 
then at the outset was declared by Jesus Christ's 
apostle to be "The pillar and ground of the truth." 
Jesus said before He left this world, "Upon this rock 
I will build My Church : and the gates of hell shall 
not prevail against it." A scheme so comprehensive, 
so vast, and so expensive as that which the great 
God made for the salvation of this fallen world was 



The Faith Delivered Once for Aee. 59 

not to be left to any mischance nor to possible failure 
by any opposition of men or demons; and so just 
before He ascended the blessed Savior said, "Go ye 
into all the world ;" his irrepealable marching order, 
"Go ye into all the world." Blessed command ! For 
it carries with it the potency of a divine prophecy 
sure to be fulfilled. "Go teach all nations." There 
will always be somebody to go, else Christ would 
never have uttered that command. And did He not 
flank the great commission by a declaration of His 
own almightiness, and of His own perpetual pres- 
ence ? "Go, teach all nations." Before it, "All power 
is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." Where- 
fore "Go ye." After it, "Lo, I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world." It will be done, 
beloved. 

We are ready now to verify the faith. We 
may do it very much as you would find the 
source of a river. Keep the central current and 
go up until you reach the fountain. You will pass 
tributary streams pouring in on either side, which 
are no essential part of the river. And so as you 
trace back this stream of Christian belief to the ear- 
liest times you will leave the inventions of men which 
have been surplusage. You have to go back only 



6o Religious Certainties. 



seventeen years to find the first of these side streams, 
which you may quickly pass. The Infallibility of 
the Pope was decreed in 1870. That is no part of the 
faith once delivered to the saints, of course. We 
know that is one of the muddy streams that pour in 
from the swamps of men's thinking. The dogma of 
the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary dates 
back only to 1854; Purgatory, to the Council of 
Trent in 1563; the denial of the communion cup to 
the laity, to the Council of Constance in 1414; 
Transubstantiation, to the Lateran Council in 12 16. 
In the twelfth century five of the seven sacraments 
of the Church of Rome disappear, and only the two 
ordained by Christ Himself remain. The suprem- 
acy of the Pope is left behind in the sixth century. 
These are facts of history, just as verifiable as the 
death of Julius Caesar or the birth of George Wash- 
ington. 

In the first five centuries no formal additions 
were made to the common faith. That faith was 
then, in the great essentials of it, exactly what the 
consenting faith of the great mass of the Christian 
Church is to-day. It was handed down to us in a 
creed which has maintained its present perfected 
form, without important variation, since the year 
500, and which in its Greek and Latin forms, with 



The: Faith Delivered Once eor Aee. 6i 

but very slight variations, dates one hundred and 
fifty years further back. In its every separate dec- 
laration it was on the lips of the Christian Church 
from the very time of the apostles. It is therefore 
fitly termed "The Apostles' Creed." Through the 
first five centuries that holy stream was flowing. It 
is flowing to-day. What intelligent Methodist, 
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist, or member of 
the Roman Catholic Church, or of the Greek Church, 
can not sincerely join in swelling that sublime chorus 
of faith, which in unbroken cadence and ever-aug- 
menting volume has been ascending to the ear of the 
Eternal from so many lands, through so many cen- 
turies, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker 
of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only 
Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy 
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under 
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried ; the 
third day He rose from the dead ; He ascended into 
heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the 
Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to 
judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy 
Ghost ; the Holy Catholic Church ; the communion of 
saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of 
the body ; and the life everlasting." Where did that 
symbol come from, and where did that faith come 



62 Religious Certainties. 



from? We have traced the stream, dropping off 
the side tributaries, throughout all the Christian cen- 
turies. 

I submit that we may expect, in view of the his- 
tory I have thus rapidly outlined, to find a consen- 
sus of Christian belief and Christian Scriptures and 
a Christian Church somewhere appearing in the 
world all together. In the year 750 of Rome there 
were neither. In the year 850 of Rome there were 
all. In that century the Church emerged, the faith 
was given, was enshrined in the Word, and the 
Christian Church was raised around it, and the three 
have come down together from then till now. I 
once sat beside the famous Silver Spring in Florida. 
It is the head of a large branch of the Oklawaha 
River. Ten steamboats might float on it at once. 
No rill runs into it on any side. As you lean over 
the prow of your boat you see the gleaming lime- 
stone of a vast crystal bowl seventy-four feet below, 
and immense subterranean torrents bursting forth. 
In the years between 750 and 850 of Rome the Silver 
Spring of Christianity burst forth. It is flowing 
to-day. 

"Flow, wondrous stream, with glory crowned; 
Flow on to earth's remotest bound !" 



The: Faith Delivered Once; for All. 63 

II. It remains in my plan of discourse briefly to 
state and unfold the; Duty of Contending For the; 
faith once for all delivered to the saints ; and that 
for three reasons which occur to me. 

1. The first is this: It is sure to be contended 
against. Christ is "the Prince of Peace;" but He 
is also "a man of war." He "came not to bring peace 
on earth, but a sword." I know the advent angels 
sang "Peace on earth," but that means peace through 
conquest; peace in the hearts of conquered rebels 
when they become loyal subjects. Christ's own track 
to His throne lay through thorns and blood. The 
truth is sure to be contended against. But if any 
young minister here before me gathers from this 
a sense of discomfort, rather let it confirm his faith. 
Heretics were divinely predicted ; therefore they are 
credentials of the faith. If there were no heretics 
we should know that we were wrong, and would be 
alarmed. They have existed in all ages of the Chris- 
tian Church, and the apostles tell you how to treat 
them. Let me remind you of the words in connec- 
tion with the text : "For there are certain men crept 
in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this 
condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of 
our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only 



64 Reugious Certainties. 



Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." Therefore, 
"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto 
you of the common salvation it was needful for me 
to write unto you and exhort you that ye should 
earnestly contend for the faith which was once for 
all delivered unto the saints." So Paul also notified 
us beforehand of this state of things to which I have 
just now referred: "For the time will come when 
they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their 
own lusts shall they reap to themselves teachers, 
having itching ears ; and they shall turn away their 
ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables." 
Therefore, what? This most logical of the apostles 
tells you, "I charge thee therefore, before God and 
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick 
and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, 
preach the Word ; be instant in season, out of season ; 
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and 
doctrine." 

The very form in which we find some great doc- 
trines stated in the Bible was determined by the 
heresies in the early Church. I will give you two 
examples which show God's method in dealing with 
heresy. In the Church at Corinth there sprang up 
a heresy concerning the resurrection of the dead. 
Many denied that there would be any resurrection 



The Faith Delivered Once for Aw,. 65 

of the dead at all. Whereupon God turned loose 
upon the Church and upon the world the greatest 
man that He had ever made, one of the mightiest 
logicians, and also one of the grandest poets. Do 
not tell me about St. Paul's being simply a man of 
logic. He had a heart of flame, as well as a clear, 
cold engine of logic in his head ; and even his brain 
took fire now and then, as it did in this record which 
he has given to the Church for all time on this ques- 
tion of the resurrection. He gives it in the 1 5th chap- 
ter of First Corinthians in a glowing strain of logic 
grander than the most magnificent poem; and mil- 
lions of Christian people have bent over their pre- 
cious dead in meek submission or with feelings of 
holy triumph because the risen Christ inspired Paul 
to write that pean of victory. Then, again, there 
arose in the Church at Galatia a controversy con- 
cerning the relations of law and grace, — a very pro- 
found subject, I know. It involved a heresy touch- 
ing the necessity of circumcision. Again this mighty 
man of logic leaped into the arena, "withstood Peter 
to the face because he was to be blamed," accused 
Peter and Barnabas of dissembling about this matter 
of circumcision, and ended the controversy with that 
lofty declaration which was not only the termination 
of a mighty logical battle, but also a shout of triumph 
5 



66 Reugious Certainties. 



for you and me and millions more : "I am crucified 
with Christ ; nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the 
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved 
me and gave Himself for me." 

2. We should contend for the faith for yet an- 
other reason. It is worth contending for. It de- 
stroyed the old polytheistic civilization. It changed 
the face of the world. It brought in a new and better 
era for the race of man. It emancipated the mind. 
You may say these are vast claims. Indeed they are. 
Look back eighteen hundred years to what the world 
was. Read "The Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire." Gibbon writes of "a sinking world." I 
use his phrase. There was no promise of a noble 
future for the race. The home, as we conceive it, 
was not. The marriage tie had no sacredness. Man 
as man had no rights, and the individual was sunk 
in the State. The emperor, though he might be a 
very monster, was deified when he died. Power, 
power was the one idea of ancient Rome. A modern 
French painter has caught the idea and represented 
it with wonderful fidelity. I mean Gerome, whose 
canvas shows us the Coliseum with its eighty thou- 
sand spectators hungering for the sight of cruelty. 
There are the emperor, the patricians, the plebeians, 



The Faith Delivered Once for Aix. 67 

and the vestal virgins. The gladiatorial combat has 
proceeded, until the wretched victim has fallen at 
the feet of his more brawny or fortunate conqueror 3 
who has placed his foot upon the victim's neck, with 
his sword half raised to give him the stroke of death ; 
but, as in duty bound, he turns his eyes to the vestal 
virgins to see whether the turning of their thumbs 
shall say, "Let him live," or "Let him die." They 
turn their thumbs to say, "Let him die," and the 
stroke is just ready to fall. He is weak, let him die. 
He has no power. He is contemptible, let him die. 
So said the vestal virgins, and so said ancient Rome. 

It was not far from that very time that a plain, 
homely man, "in bodily presence weak, and in speech 
contemptible" (so his enemies said), wrote a letter 
to some people in Rome and said, "I am ready, so 
much as in me lies, to preach the gospel to you 
which are at Rome also; for it is power." Here is 
power against power. It is the power of God against 
the power of man. It is "the power of God unto 
salvation" as against man's power of destruction. 
It is the power of God unto salvation "unto every 
one that believeth." Here is hope for the individual 
man. How this levels humanity, not down, but up ! 
In the old civilization there was no redeeming power. 
It was rotten to the core; it must sink and perish. 



68 Reugious Certainties. 



But thank God for "the faith once for all delivered 
to the saints." Jesus Christ brought in redeeming 
elements. What were they? The truths of man's 
accountability, salvability, immortality, resurrection, 
and eternal union with the Great God through Jesus 
Christ. New elements these, of everlasting and 
transforming power. There was not a single one of 
them in the old Roman civilization. Jesus Christ 
brought into the world inspirations and superhuman 
forces which turned the world on its hinges and gave 
mankind a new start in the possibilities of life eter- 
nal. So I say "the faith" is worth contending for. 

3. For yet another reason let us contend for the 
faith. It is worth our while to contend for it. God's 
great way of making His truth mighty is by putting 
that truth into living men. God's great way of get- 
ting acceptance for His gospel is by incarnating that 
gospel. His way of making Himself known to the 
world was by incarnating Himself, in the person of 
Jesus Christ. His way of getting for His truth cur- 
rency in the world is by putting it into the mouths 
and lives of men with hot hearts, making their hot 
hearts hotter by means of it, and so thrusting it be- 
fore the unbelieving multitude. It is wonderful how 
any truth once lodged in a human soul will enlarge 
and ennoble that soul. Many a scientific thought 



The: Faith Delivered Once for Aix. 69 



without any moral aspect has lifted men into 
nobler thinking, and more earnest working, and a 
higher grade of living. Thoughts essentially moral 
and religious have still greater developing power. 

Take the truth of salvation by faith, witnessed 
by the Holy Ghost. It would seem as though there 
ought never to have been any serious doubts about 
that. Enoch "had this testimony, that he pleased 
God." David sang songs of triumph as a forgiven 
sinner; and Paul shouted his victory all the way 
along. John got so full of the glory of the great 
salvation, leaning on the breast of the blessed Re- 
deemer and following His footsteps, that you forgot 
long ago that John ever was a Son of Thunder. You 
think of him as the sweetest, meekest, and loveliest 
of men, but such he was not at first. Christ trans- 
formed John and filled him with a clear knowledge 
of the great salvation of which he speaks with such 
emphatic reiteration in his first epistle. That epistle 
is only four pages long ; you can read it through in 
nine minutes. In that brief space he says nineteen 
times, "we know God," and as though that did not 
satisfy him he once says, "We do know that we know 
Him." And then in thirty-two other places in the 
same epistle he says the same thing in other words, 
making fifty-one substantive declarations in one short 



70 Reugious Certainties. 



letter that we are consciously saved through Jesus 
Christ. 

Two hundred years ago you could not have found 
a thousand men in all England who would have said 
that they knew their sins forgiven. God wanted to 
get currency for this truth in the world. This part 
of the faith once delivered to the saints must have a 
new outmarch; and how? Into a quiet town, with 
shades more beautiful than these on this charming 
lake-shore, to the venerable University of Oxford 
comes a son of a stern old English rector. He gets 
through his collegiate course with high credit, but 
has a burning desire to know more about God and 
about personal religion. He is a highly educated 
and brilliant scholar, with a large mind ; and is a 
consecrated and even slavish servant of God. All 
the years from the age of twenty to thirty-five was 
this truth burning in his bosom, that there is some- 
thing better in Christian experience than he has ever 
learned ; that a man must be justified and sanctified 
also, but justified first ; that there is to be found out 
some way of conscious and rejoicing access to the 
eternal God, to the feet and heart of the King, and 
that King the Savior. For many years he walked up 
and down those shades studying the Bible and 
abounding in good works ; and then hastened across 



The; Faith Delivered Once eor Aix. 71 

the ocean to convert the Indians. He came back 
confused and puzzled. What, with the Bible open 
before him, and with the history of the Church at 
his back ? Yes. After all this long and painstaking- 
search he wrote, "I went to America to convert In- 
dians, but who shall convert me?" But the fullness 
of time came and the power of God fell upon him. 
His heart was "strangely warmed." Methodism was 
then born; and therefore we are here to-day. But 
for those fifteen years of struggle until this truth 
possessed that one man, Methodism would never 
have been. So I say it is worth our while to contend 
for the faith once delivered to the saints. 

The theme is too large and my time is too short. 
But I must say a few words of practical application. 

1. I plead for a new devotion to the study of 
theology. I saw in the paper a few days ago a state- 
ment that Dr. Fairbairn, the able Nonconformist 
professor of theology in Oxford University, has re- 
cently published an article in the Contemporary Re- 
view pleading for "The Study of Theology as an 
Academic Discipline." I have not seen the article, 
but I say Amen to the title of it. I would like to 
know by what process of reason the man who gets 
a little chemistry, a very little botany, more Latin 



72 Reugious Certainties. 



and less German, a little French and some Greek, 
with a smattering of philosophy, is considered a lib- 
erally educated man, when he does not know any- 
thing about the grandest of all sciences, theology. 
I hope for the time, I plead to-day for the time, when 
in every college and in every university, the science 
of theology shall be taught, and no young man shall 
be permitted to graduate if he is ignorant of that 
noblest science. 

I plead also for better opportunities for the study 
of theology by theological scholars. I mean by these 
hard-working, noble men, who are our professors of 
theology. We must provide such endowments for 
this and similar institutions and such increase of the 
teaching force that our ablest and best-taught men 
shall have leisure for yet profounder and more fruit- 
ful study of theology and for brilliant and able 
authorship. Methodism owes a debt to America and 
to the world which she has not fully paid, a debt of 
high authorship in Arminian theology. It must be 
paid in pure gold. The payment is well begun. We 
have the bullion and the mints. O for more coin ! 

I plead for the study of theology by pastors. 
Some young pastors, after they have gone over the 
rudiments which are taught in the theological 
schools, think themselves fairly equipped for making 



The; Faith Delivered Once for Aix. 73 

sermons if they dabble a little in philosophy, a little 
in science, and a little in theology. Young men, 
study theology, steep your minds in the great themes 
of the great theologians, in the treatises and sermons 
which are packed full of the teaching of God con- 
cerning "the faith," and be able to give a reason for 
the hope that is within you. 

I plead for the study of theology in the Sunday- 
schools. You may laugh at Catechisms as much as 
you please. But let me tell you that one of the most 
brilliant, learned, versatile, and eloquent men that 
American Methodism has produced, John McClin- 
tock, used to plead often and earnestly for the teach- 
ing of the Catechism to all children in the home and 
in the Sunday-school. If you do not like the Cate- 
chism, go to work and make a better one ; but let the 
children learn the Catechism. 

2. May one of the youngest of the General Su- 
perintendents of our beloved Zion, who within the 
past thirteen months has felt the pulse and studied 
the creed of the Church in five of its Conferences in 
Europe and in nine in this country, venture to speak 
a word more personal to these venerable men, at 
whose feet I would be glad to sit, the professors in 
this theological school? I beg you, brethren, teach 
these young men thoroughly to understand and "ear- 



74 Reugious Certainties. 



nestly contend for the faith once for all delivered 
to the saints." Disabuse them of the specious and 
silly fallacy couched in the current phrase so glibly 
spoken by every callow and shallow heretic about 
every man "doing his own thinking." Of course 
they will need for some years to do the hardest think- 
ing they are capable of, in order to get a tolerable 
comprehension of the great central truths of the 
Bible as formulated in all orthodox creeds. Bid them 
listen to Mr. Gladstone, and read his two very strik- 
ing essays on the proper "Influence of Authority in 
Matters of Religion." As in the law the young prac- 
titioner is perpetually looking for precedents, and 
as the young physician busies himself in finding out 
the record of actual cases and of the treatment of 
them by the masters of the healing art, so Mr. Glad- 
stone says that the young clergyman owes it not only 
to the Church, but to his own good sense and sober 
reason, to receive the faith once delivered to the 
saints, to cling to it, and not to depart from it unless 
protracted and prayerful study compels reluctant dis- 
sent. 

Remember always that "it is the heart that makes 
the theologian ;" that the truth taught here must go 
through the brain into the hearts of these young men. 
I wish that we might have in Boston, in Evanston, 



The Faith Delivered Once for Ale. 75 



in Madison, and in every one of our theological 
schools a revival of religion every year; a genuine 
revival, in which the young men who are in training 
to be teachers of the Church might go very low in 
humble prayer and confession before God, and get 
a mighty baptism which shall cause the deepest 
truths of personal experience to go into their very 
souls and bring them close to the Savior's feet. 

Give us also Methodist preachers. We are not 
bigots ; we will gladly extend the shelter of these 
lovely shades over all who come to us, provided 
their hearts are right. But we desire to send out 
true and earnest soldiers of the Cross, sanctified by 
the power of the Holy Ghost, washed in the blood 
that cleanseth from all sin, that they may go out into 
the world and contend in blood earnest for "the faith 
once for all delivered to the saints." 

I will say but one other word, though I would be 
glad to say many. Avoid the half-deserved criticism 
laid at the door of some theological institutions, that 
of destroying individuality and training all students 
after one pattern. If a lion comes here, do not shear 
his mane, pare his claws, draw his teeth, nor still 
his roar ; but cultivate him, develop him. By all 
means develop him, but let it be on leonine prin- 
ciples; and when you send him out, turn him loose 



7 6 



Reugious Certainties. 



upon the world a lion still. See to it, of course, that 
his roar be true, and that the fire in his eye be holy, 
and that he shall go out in the fear of God to use 
his voice and teeth and claws. See to it also, above 
all else, that his heart shall beat responsive to the 
heart of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. The Church 
of God needs in her pulpits no more of that class 
of which there are too many already — of which one 
is too many — nice little, clipped, perfumed, attitud- 
inizing, platitudinizing, ecclesiastical dandies ; but O, 
she wants from Maine to California, in every State 
and in every hamlet and in all lands, an ever-multi- 
plying race of brawny, brainy, developed, individ- 
ualized, consecrated, manly, godly men in her pulpits. 
Let my last word be this : above all things God help 
you to teach your students "earnestly to contend for 
the faith once for all delivered to the saints." 



III. 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 

(Baccalaureate: at Drew Theological Semi- 
nary, Madison, N. J., May 14, 1895.) 

"Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? 
Whose Son is He?" — Matt, xxii, 41, 42. 

These questions have everlasting interest for 
men. Jesus Christ is the touchstone of all hearts 
and the determiner of all destinies. At first the 
preaching of Him was to some a savor of life unto 
life, and to others of death unto death. "To the 
Jews He was a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks 
foolishness ; but to the saved, both Jews and Greeks, 
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." 
The holy Simeon, who took the infant Jesus into his 
arms in the temple, said, "This Child is set for the 
fall and rising again of many in Israel ; and for a 
sign which shall be spoken against ; that the thoughts 
of many hearts may be revealed." And in the great 
and terrible day of judgment every man's relation 

77 



78 Religious Certainties. 



to Him shall determine his destiny. To those on the 
right hand He will say, "Come, ye blessed, for I was 
an hungered and ye gave Me meat;" to those on 
the left, "Depart, ye cursed, for I was an hungered, 
and ye gave Me no meat." 

And so, everywhere that the knowledge of Jesus 
has gone, men are profoundly interested about Him. 
They can not let Him alone. They are busy with 
these questions : — Who is He ? Whose Son is He ? 
What is His character? What is His personality? 
What is His grade in the scale of being? What is 
His relation to the world? What is His relation 
to me? 

John the Baptist, discouraged, disappointed, im- 
prisoned, and about to be martyred, sent messengers 
to Him, saying, "Art Thou He that should come, or 
must we look for another?" And that Herod who 
presently beheaded John, hearing of the miracles of 
Jesus, with startled conscience said: "This is John 
the Baptist. He is risen from the dead. Therefore 
mighty works do show forth themselves in Him." 
The High Priest said, "I adjure Thee by the living 
God that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ 
or no." And Pilate, weak-kneed and wondering, 
said, "Art Thou the King of the Jews ?" And ever 
since, men have been busy about Him. His life has 



What Think Ye of Christ? 79 

been written in hundreds of languages. It is in 
nearly all libraries. Probably there are twenty times 
as many biographies of Jesus as of any other person. 

And yet are you just as sure of His historic 
standing-place upon the earth as you are of that of 
Abraham Lincoln? Have you no sympathy with 
those disciples who after His resurrection from the 
dead "were terrified and affrighted, and supposed 
that they had seen a spirit ?" Most of you never saw 
Mr. Lincoln. I saw him. I heard his voice. I saw 
the fresh blood-marks on the pillow on which his 
great head tossed wearily in his dying. And yet are 
you any less sure of his historic standing-place on 
the earth than I am? Are you any less sure of that 
of John Wesley or Charlemagne, whom none of us 
ever saw ; or of Julius Caesar, or of Abraham ? You 
see, it is not a question of time, but of fact. 

In addressing myself to the question of the text, 
I desire to lay out a scheme of evidence in answer 
to these two very simple questions : Was there once 
such a person on earth as Jesus Christ? And, sec- 
ondly, What sort of person was He? 

Now, I perfectly understand that in asking these 
questions I throw open the gates to all Christian evi- 
dences, both external and internal, and especially to 
great treatises on Christology. And yet for the pur- 



8o Reugious Certainties. 



pose of the hour I shall narrow our range of thought 
sufficiently to reach some conclusions within a rea- 
sonable length of time, praying that the Holy Spirit 
may make some deep impression of Christian truth 
on every mind and every heart. 

First, then, I raise the question, "Was there such 
a person on earth as Jesus Christ?" Has He a his- 
toric character? Has He a real standing-place in 
the history of the world ? 

In answering this question, and also the other, 
I shall call attention to four lines of proof applicable 
alike to both : — first, to profane history ; then to the 
epistles of St. Paul, especially the first four, which 
are incontestably genuine ; then to the four great 
biographies; and, last of all, to Christianity itself. 

I. Very briefly, under this first question, for I 
need not delay long here before this Christian audi- 
ence ; Was there such a person as Jesus Christ? 

I. On that, what has profane history to tell 
us? I shall bring forth but a single passage — a 
specimen of all, and perhaps the most striking that 
profane history furnishes — the celebrated passage of 
Tacitus concerning the burning of Rome, and the 
charging of it by Nero on the Christians ; the passage 
concerning which Gibbon says, "The most skeptical 
criticism is obliged to assert the authenticity of this 



What Think Ye of Christ? 8i 



celebrated passage of Tacitus." And where, on such 
a point, Gibbon affirms, we need not stop to question. 
Of course you understand that the opinions stated in 
this passage are those of a Roman and a heathen; 
but that will not prevent you from giving due weight 
to the facts recorded by this veracious historian. 
You know that Nero burned the city of Rome, and 
charged it on the Christians. This is what Tacitus 
says about it: "Nero judicially accused of the of- 
fense, and punished with the most exceeding tor- 
ments, a set of men . . . called Christians. 
The author of that sect was Christ, who in the reign 
of Tiberius suffered death by the sentence of the 
procurator, Pontius Pilate. The vile superstition, 
repressed for a time, again broke out, not only in 
Judea, but in Rome also. ... At first only 
those were apprehended who confessed themselves 
of that sect; afterward a vast multitude discovered 
by them, all of whom were condemned. . . . 
Their executions were so contrived as to expose 
them to derision and contempt. Some were cov- 
ered with the skins of wild beasts, that they might 
be torn to pieces. Some were crucified. While 
others, having been daubed over with combustible 
materials, were set up as lights in the night-time, 
and thus burned to death. To these spectacles Nero 
6 



82 Religious Certainties. 



gave his own guidance, and exhibited the diversions 
of the circus, sometimes standing in the crowd in the 
habit of a charioteer, and at other times driving the 
chariot himself. Until at length these men, . . . 
began to be commiserated as people who were de- 
stroyed, not out of regard to the public welfare, but 
only to gratify the cruelty of one man." 

Now, my question at this moment is simply this : 
Was there such a person on earth as Jesus Christ? 
If not, how did this veracious historian come to write 
these things within thirty-five years of the alleged 
crucifixion of the Savior — close by — not so far away 
as we are now from the death of Lincoln? The 
question carries its own answer to every mind. 
Those words could not have been written if there 
had not been such a person, with a history well un- 
derstood throughout the Roman Empire. 

2. Secondly, I point you to the epistles of St. 
Paul. 

Now you are disappointed that I do not instantly 
turn you to the burning splendors of the four great 
biographies. But I name the epistles of Paul first, 
partly because they were written first (all of them 
within thirty years of the death of Jesus), and partly 
because they are autograph books, as the Gospels are 
not, every one of them, according to the custom of 



What Think Ye of Christ? 83 



the time, having the name of the author at the head 
of the letter. Here they are. German criticism 
has ceased to call in question the authenticity of most 
of them, and especially of the first four — Romans, 
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. Here 
they are. They are genuine. Infidels say so. Now, 
how did they come to be, and what do they write 
about ? 

In all good libraries there is a book entitled Bos- 
well's "Life of Johnson." I take it that book alone 
is proof of two things — that there was in England 
some time ago a man named Richard Boswell, and 
another man named Samuel Johnson. The existence 
of the book carries those two demonstrations; and 
if there is any difference, the proof of the latter is the 
stronger, for if it had not been for Johnson you 
never would have heard of Boswell. And if it had 
not been for Jesus Christ, you never would have 
heard of Paul. 

3. Look next at the four great biographies. 
Here they are. Do they prove anything as to the 
existence of any person ? I shall come back to them 
later ; but at this moment my thought is simply this, 
to quote the words of Rousseau : "The inventor of 
such a character as they portray would have been a 
greater miracle than the hero himself." 



84 Reugious Certainties. 



4. I now point you to Christianity; and I can 
point in any direction. Christianity is Christ: the 
two are one. Without Him you can not have it. Men 
talk of denying Christianity. It is not a question for 
affirmation or denial. You might as well deny Ply- 
mouth Rock, or Massachusetts, or the Old Red 
Sandstone, or the Solar System. Christianity simply 
and sublimely is. And the question simply is, what 
you propose to do about it. 

I dismiss, with this rapid outline of thought 
which you can elaborate at your leisure, the first 
question, "Was there once upon the earth such a 
person as Jesus Christ?" These words of Tacitus 
say yes. These words of Paul say yes. These four 
Gospels say yes. Christianity says yes. 

II. Now, with fuller elaboration, let me go on 
to the second question, with the four lines of proof 
just outlined still in mind. 

What sort of person was He — this Jesus of Naz- 
areth ? 

I. To begin with, a man; that, undoubtedly, a 
man. He walked, breathed, talked, ate, drank, slept, 
grew weary, felt pain, died. He was a man. 
Withal, He loved as a man. He loved His dis- 
ciples. He had His chosen friends, just like the 
rest of us. He seems to have thought more of 



What Think Ye of Christ? 85 



John than He did of Peter or of Thomas. He 
loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus so notably that it 
is mentioned in the Book. He loved His disciples; 
and, as He "loved His own which were in the world, 
He loved them unto the end." O, how He loved 
them! So much that just before He left them, in 
His valedictory address in the fourteenth, fifteenth, 
and sixteenth chapters of John's Gospel, He spread 
a plaster for every sore and gave a medicine for 
every disease, so that until the end of time no dis- 
ciple of His might ever lack just what he should 
need of comfort and help. Above all, He loved His 
mother. How He loved His mother! When He 
was hanging on the cross between two thieves, He 
saw her there almost writhing with the sword 
through her soul; and He said to His best beloved 
disciple, "She is your mother;" and to her, "He is 
your son." From that hour John took her to his 
own home. Yes, He was a man. 

2. But in the second place, He was the most re- 
markable man of whom history has made any record, 
in several particulars ; pre-eminently, in this : in the 
unique and absolutely peerless intellectual and moral 
character which He exhibited, and in the wonderful 
results of His life and work. Who else that has 
ever lived could say without a blush and without 



86 Reugious Certainties. 



bringing a blush to the cheek of his most sensitive 
devotee, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" 
and, "Satan cometh and hath nothing in me?" Yet 
some of you never have thought, perhaps, until this 
hour, of the apparent — no, I will not say that — of 
what, if they had been on any other lips, would have 
been the manifest and insufferable deceit and con- 
ceit of such words as those. Imagine Socrates or 
any saint or any sage of time to have used those 
words. How often I have been delighted to find the 
estimate put upon the Lord Jesus Christ, this unique, 
inexplicable, character which yet men are everlast- 
ingly trying to explain — the estimate put upon Jesus 
by men who have not bowed the knee to Him in 
humble loyalty. I might quote by the hour, if the 
time permitted and if it were fit, such words as 
these which I take from the pantheist Spinoza : "To 
know the ideal Christ, namely, the eternal wisdom 
of God, this alone is necessary." Or from Fichte, 
the atheist: "Christ did more than all philosophers 
in bringing heavenly morality into the hearts and 
homes of men. Until the end of time all the sensible 
will bow low before this Jesus of Nazareth, and all 
will humbly acknowledge the exceeding glory of this 
great phenomenon. His followers are nations and 
generations." 



What Think Ye of Christ? 87 



I will not multiply citations. Let me just refer 
you to two of the greatest men of letters of the nine- 
teenth century, or perhaps of any other century, 
most influential upon the minds of young men by 
their marvelous intellectual power, the one in Ger- 
many, the other throughout the English-speaking 
world. Let me refer you to them, and tell you in 
a word what they said about Him — Goethe and Car- 
lyle. Goethe said of Him : "That Holy One, the 
model of humanity." Carlyle said of Him: "His 
life was a perfect ideal poem." And toward the 
close of his unique book on "Heroes and Hero Wor- 
ship," after going up and down the ages to find 
the great characters whom he describes as the heroes 
of the world, he solemnly says : "The greatest of all 
heroes shall be nameless here: let sacred silence 
meditate that sacred matter." You see how this 
amazing personality has forced Himself upon the 
thought of the kings of the intellectual world. 

But some say, "This is by His moral majesty 
and pre-eminence;" and carelessly assume that in- 
tellectually the man Christ Jesus was not at the head 
of the race. I think that some really have believed 
that intellectually He was not the peer of the fore- 
most philosophers and statesmen and warriors. 
Well, then, think for a moment of this — that His 



88 Religious Certainties. 



words dominate the world. Yet He never wrote a 
book or a letter that we know anything about. He 
wrote only in the dust, yet His words more and more 
dominate the world. In particular, in illustration 
of the unique and peerless intellectual character and 
power of the man Christ Jesus, let me ask you to 
note these things ; that, on the instant, He always 
answered with perfect wisdom every most puzzling- 
question propounded to Him; that in these answers 
and in other sententious sayings He went to the very 
roots of all moral character and conduct and laid 
down principles in casuistry good for all time; and 
that, in germ at least, His moral and religious teach- 
ing was absolutely complete. 

Of the first, take a single illustration. There are 
many; for again and again the scribes, Pharisees, 
and Church lawyers tried to catch Him in His talk. 
They would study for days and weeks for some puz- 
zling question to overpower this new prophet and 
throw discredit on Him. Here is one specimen. 
They had talked it over; they had got their best; 
they felt that they had what would certainly win 
the day, when they came to Him with every token 
of external respect and said to Him, "Master, is it 
lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or no ?" Now they 
have Him, as they think. He will have to say "Yes" 



What Think Ye of Christ? 89 

or "No" to that. If He says "Yes," He is the enemy 
of Judea and of the Jews ; for they esteem this tribute 
the sign of their national subjection; they hate it 
and they hate the Roman Empire. If He says 
"No," He is the enemy of Caesar; it is treason 
to say "No," and Caesar will have to make an 
example of Him. They have Him, they think. 
"Show me a penny." They hand Him a Roman 
denarius, the copper coin in everybody's hand. 
"Whose image and superscription is this?" "Cae- 
sar's." Everybody knows that; that is the face 
of the emperor; Caesar's. "Render therefore unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God 
the things that are God's." Thus He declared for- 
ever that human government is a divine institution, 
and that when even Nero is on the throne a man 
owes the religious duty of obedience to law ; so that 
mob rule is not only impolitic and bad, but 
wicked before God; so that order must be main- 
tained in every community, and rioting is rebellion 
not only against the governor, but against God. 
Yet He proclaimed forever that when the dominion 
of conscience and of God begin, the dominion of the 
civil ruler ends. There is not a wiser, there is not a 
shrewder answer in all history. 

Take two events that occurred in the life of 



90 Religious Certainties. 



Peter, in illustration of my second thought at this 
point. Peter, when Jesus predicted His coming de- 
cease at Jerusalem by crucifixion, said, "Be it far 
from Thee, Lord : this shall not be unto Thee." And 
Jesus said, "Get thee behind Me, Satan." And you 
are startled, and wonder how those words could ever 
have proceeded from the holy lips of the Son of God. 
Then again, when this same Peter, Jesus being be- 
fore the Sanhedrin for trial, denies Him three times 
with oath and curse right in the presence of His 
enemies, Jesus simply turns on him a loving and 
pitying look of heart-breaking tenderness — and that 
is all. You wonder at both these things. But you 
must remember that Peter's first sin was a sin of 
selfishness, wishing for a worldly kingdom, refus- 
ing to accept Jesus as He was, as about to be cruci- 
fied; and the other was the sin of a blundering, 
used-up, weak, broken-down, but zealous devotee. 
Now, for that first class of sins Jesus has nothing 
but wrath; and for the second He has nothing but 
pity. And both times the Man of Nazareth was pro- 
foundly and eternally right. 

Take one more illustration of the same sort. To 
the most respectable religionists of the day,, who 
wore long robes and made great pretensions and 
prayed at the street corners, He pours out in one long 



What Think Ye of Christ? 91 

chapter wrath and cursing, the very climax of hu- 
man execration. No language has a page that can 
equal it on that line. "Whited sepulchers," ''gener- 
ation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of 
hell ?" Yet, for those outrageous sinners who stood 
right around His cross and had been spitting on 
Him and buffeting Him, He prayed, "Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." But note 
again, the sin of the first class was the sin of per- 
sistent and intelligent hypocrisy; for that Jesus has 
nothing but wrath, and never has had. And the 
other was the sin of blundering, ignorant, weak 
sinners ; and for such He has nothing but pity. 
Now, I say, both times, and every time, and in all 
things, He is supremely right. 

His answers were also always on the instant. 
Questions the most familiar are brought before your 
courts of justice. They are taken up from the lower 
courts to the courts of appeal, and the judges know 
what is coming, and have considered it beforehand. 
They hear arguments ; and then they take the briefs 
and all the papers, and say, "Decision reserved;" 
and in two or three weeks or months you will get 
their opinions. Jesus Christ, on the instant, an- 
swered every question, and never once blundered. 

In illustration of His intellectual character and 



92 Reugious Certainties. 



power, note also the absolute completeness of the 
moral and religious teaching which He Himself 
gave or to which He inspired His apostles ; so that 
I make bold to say that, while Biblical theology is a 
progressive science, in the sense that it is constantly 
better and better understood, and in no other, 
you have in the Bible, and especially in the New 
Testament, all moral and religious teaching, at least 
in distinct germ; so that in eighteen hundred years 
the busy, thinking world has not added to these lines 
of truth the dot of an "i" or the cross of a "t." 

I name as the second proof of the intellectual 
peerlessness of the man Christ Jesus, the effects of 
His life and work in the w T orld. I can not pause to 
discuss this point; but let me just say that if you 
will think of these two things, the transformation of 
the cross from the instrument of a death as disgrace- 
ful then as a hangman's rope is now, until it has 
become a thing of glory forever, and then will think 
of the growing sweetness of His blessed name in 
all lands, so that it is sung more and more in all lan- 
guages, you will be on the line of what I would like 
to say. But I pass it. He w r as, then, first, a man; 
and, secondly, the most wonderful man of whom his- 
tory has made any record. 

3. Now I go on, in the third place, to say he was 



What Think Ye; of Christ? 93 

a miraculous man. He was born miraculously. He 
had a human mother ; and He had no human father. 
He died miraculously. And yet He was murdered. 
He was delivered by God to the will of wicked men. 
They were responsible for His murder. He did not 
die by suicide. And yet He was able to say, "I can 
lay down My life and I can take it again; no man 
taketh it from Me." And He "gave up the ghost." 

He also rose miraculously. Yes, He did ! He 
did! O blessed Easter, just behind us and always 
around and before us ! He rose miraculously. The 
Church can afford to say this with all emphasis, 
more than once a year, and in every form of state- 
ment ; for here is the hinge of Christianity. On this 
it turns. The most logical of the apostles, from 
whom I just now quoted, and one of the masters 
of philosophic logic for all ages, says if He did 
not rise there is no Christianity, there is no par- 
don of sin, there is no salvation, there is no immor- 
tal life, the dead in Christ have perished. Yes, 
right here is the bulwark of the Christian faith. 
And so we say with confidence concerning this mi- 
raculous man, "He rose miraculously." 

I heard, a few years ago, from President Patton, 
of Princeton College, a striking lecture on the sub- 
ject of "doubt," in the course of which he presented 



94 



Religious Certainties. 



the familiar line of thought that only the truths of 
pure mathematics can be mathematically demon- 
strated, not even those of mixed mathematics, or of 
the natural sciences; that all other truths except 
these submit to what we call the moral argument; 
that is, the accumulation of probabilities until there 
is no room left in a sane mind for serious doubt. 
That is the way you prove the law of gravitation, 
and the undulatory theory of light, and every other 
fact, Christian or unchristian. Only this line of 
moral demonstration applies to facts. And when 
Dr. Patton had worked out that line of thought suffi- 
ciently, he said, "Of course the resurrection of Jesus 
comes under this line of proof, and not under mathe- 
matical demonstration." Of course it does. And 
yet the sane mind may reach the demonstration so 
as to rest upon it with absolute certainty. And he 
used this illustration : "What if the train that has car- 
ried you a thousand miles does leave you half a mile 
from your door? You will get home; your journey 
is accomplished." And then, toward the close of the 
lecture, admitting, as we cheerfully do concerning 
every fact, as we must with regard to the resurrec- 
tion of Christ, that there is a possibility for a sane 
mind to deny it by failing to attend to the evidence, 
while he can not deny that twice three are six, he 



What Think Ye; of Christ? 95 



went on to say: "What about the last half mile?" 
Then he solemnly said, with a manner and a gesture 
that I can neither imitate nor forget, "The Holy 
Ghost takes you the last half mile." And I inwardly 
said, O shade of John Wesley, come up from the 
dead and say Amen to this typical Calvinist of this 
generation. 

"We are His witnesses of these things," said 
Peter. Of what, Peter? "Of the resurrection of 
Jesus from the dead; witnesses that He has given 
us repentance and remission of sins. We are His 
witnesses ; we tell the story ; we know it to be true." 
How do you know it to be true, Peter ? "We are His 
witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy 
Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey 
Him." That ends the question. Argument has 
taken us the thousand miles, under the guidance and 
inspiration of the blessed Holy Ghost; and the 
blessed Holy Ghost alone takes us the last half mile, 
and we get to demonstration. 

Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. Somebody 
says to me, "How do you know it?" I reverently 
answer, "Because I have met Him this morning." 
"I live, yet not I ; Christ liveth in me. And the life 
which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of 
God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." I 



96 Religious Certainties. 



sympathize with the striking words of Martin 
Luther, "If any man knocks at the door of my 
breast and says, 'Who lives there?' my prompt an- 
swer is, 7 esus Christ lives here; Martin Luther 
died years ago/ " 

Now I think I am prepared to make and vindi- 
cate a sweeping statement as to the vast field which 
still opens before us. 

You have seen that Christ is a man, the most 
marvelous man of whom history makes mention, 
and a miraculous man. The best beloved disciple, 
who leaned on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper, 
doubtless caught, better than any other had done, 
the rhythmic cadence of that agonized heart which 
was just about to break on the cross for the sins of 
the world; and after that broken heart had been 
healed forever by resurrection power, that same dis- 
ciple told the purpose of the infinite tragedy : "Many 
other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His 
disciples, which are not written in this book: but 
these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye 
might have life through His name." 

Led thus by John, I now go on to say, Jesus is 
more than man; He is very God; He is an Almighty 



What Think Ye of Christ? 97 



Savior. The Christian postulate stands revealed be- 
fore us, and I once more appeal to my witnesses. 

First, to Tacitus. Now, what does he say ? He 
says that within thirty-five years of the alleged 
crucifixion of Jesus Christ, when Rome was burned, 
there was a sect of people called Christians after the 
name of Christ, who had been crucified in Judea 
under the reign of Pontius Pilate. And there were 
so many of them that they spread from Jerusalem 
(when there were no railroads) to all the Roman 
Empire, and had filled the city. And Nero, having 
himself set Rome on fire, charged the burning of 
the city on the Christians, and seized them and put 
them to death with every refinement of cruelty. A 
great many confessed that they were of that sect. 
Others were discovered by them. And he says it 
was "a vast multitude." And they were put to 
death. They were clad in shirts of pitch and set up 
in the Roman parks and set on fire to give light by 
night ; they were crucified ; they were thrown to wild 
beasts; until public compassion execrated Nero as 
a monster acting from malice. Now, how did there 
come to be those people there called Christians? 
And how did they come to have this spirit about 
their Christian profession ? And how did they come 
to be ready and willing to die for it ? What sort of 
7 



9 8 



Reugious Certainties. 



person was Jesus Christ whose name they took as 
their name? What force must have acted upon 
these people and made them willing to rush to their 
death rather than bring any discredit on the name 
of this man of Judea who, only thirty-five years 
ago, was Himself crucified in Jerusalem? But the 
conclusion is too plain. I need not draw it. I need 
not name it. It is enough for me to say in the lan- 
guage of Carlyle : "In good truth, my friends, men 
never have died for a fable." 

Well, look at another of our lines of proof, the 
epistles of Paul; those wonderful letters. Whose 
letters? Paul's. Who was he? A hater of this re- 
ligion, a despiser of Jesus Christ, a great man, a 
glorious man, a king of intellect, hating the Chris- 
tian religion, a successful persecutor who asked for 
and obtained a commission to arrest and bring to 
trial all the Christians in Damascus. On that Da- 
mascus journey something marvelous happened. 
Pie declares he was made "a new creature," and his 
name was changed from Saul to Paul. r He instantly 
became the humblest servant of Jesus Christ, and 
for thirty years gloried in his new bondage as per- 
fect freedom. 

Read his epistles and see what he says about Jesus 
Christ. Charnock says that the dear Name comes 



What Think Ye of Christ? 99 



from Paul's pen five hundred times; and if you 
glance at Galatians, you find such words as these: 
"Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but 
by Jesus Christ;" "Grace be unto you, and peace, 
from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus 
Christ: to whom be glory for ever and ever;" "I 
am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet 
not I, Christ liveth in me;" "Stand fast there- 
fore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us 
free;" "God forbid that I should glory save in the 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now, who was 
He who made such a rejoicing, triumphant bond- 
slave out of this king in the thought world ? 

Then, look again at the four great biographies. 
I said just now that Jesus never wrote a book or a 
letter, but just wrote in the dust, what was quickly 
gone. But men heard Him, and were transformed 
by His words, and wrote them down; and those 
words are ruling the world more and more. Notice 
that at the very top of a climax of your orators, a 
Daniel Webster, a William E. Gladstone, a John 
Bright, some word of Jesus Christ is likely to come 
to cap the climax and end the argument. Notice 
that in the very climax of your loftiest possible 
music, in the oratorio, some word of Jesus Christ 



LofC. 



ioo Reugious Certainties. 



dashes from the mountain peaks of human song to 
the heavens. 

And then, take one more thought out of these 
four Gospels. Jesus says that He wrought mir- 
acles. Where does He say that? When John 
the Baptist said through his messengers, "Art 
Thou He that should come, or must we look 
for another?" (that is the Greek of it, "Must 
we look for another?") he said: "Go tell John 
again the things that ye do hear and see." John 
is in prison; he is used up; he is overpowered. 
No longer baptizing men by the ten thousand, he 
is in a fit of discouragement. Go, tell him what you 
have just heard here. Tell him that the lepers are 
cleansed, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see, 
the dead are raised up, the poor have the Gospel 
preached unto them. That is, Go tell John again 
that I am working miracles all along the line, by the 
thousand. 

Jesus, then, said that He wrought miracles. 
Now, He either did or He did not. If He did, He 
is what He professes to be, the Son of God, the very 
God, the world's Redeemer. Language fails in at- 
tempting to tell the glory of Jesus Christ if what 
He says about Himself in the New Testament is 



What Think Ye of Christ? iot 



true. Well, it is true if He wrought miracles; and 
He either did work them or He did not. If He did, 
He is very God. If He did not — now listen to this 
alternative — if He did not, then one of these two 
things is true — my Lord, pardon me for saying these 
words just long enough to trample them under my 
feet — if He did not, then He is either an impostor or 
a fanatic ; one of the two. 

An impostor! The infidel world forbids you to 
say that any more. There is no living Tom Paine 
who dares say that. I have quoted the atheist and 
the pantheist. He is not an impostor! He is the 
truth ! And the world has come to understand that. 
Well, then, fanatic? Have not we just seen that He 
had the clearest intellect in all history? That He 
got at the truth without any argument over it? 
Fanatic? A man with crazed brain? No, He was 
what He said He was. He was what He inspired 
John to write that He was. And at the end of the 
last of the four Gospels, in giving an account of the 
resurrection miracles and appearances, John said, 
"Many other things did Jesus which are not written 
in this book." Do not think they all are set down 
here. But "these are written that ye may believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, 



102 Reugious Certainties. 



believing, ye may have life through His name." 
That is, John says that the record proves that Jesus 
is Divine, and is the Almighty and life-giving Savior. 

One more word, turning to the fourth of the wit- 
nesses, Christianity. We have seen what Tacitus's 
words prove, what Paul's epistles prove, what the 
four great biographies prove. Now turn to Chris- 
tianity itself, and interrogate that for a moment; 
we can do no more this morning. About the year 
753 after the founding of the city of Rome, there 
was the spectacle of what Gibbon, greatest of his- 
torians, in his majestic book concerning the "De- 
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire," describes as 
"a sinking world." And that it was. The old civil- 
ization was moribund and almost dead, and the hu- 
man race on the certain road to destruction. So 
Gibbon says, and all historians have to say it. So 
Juvenal, the contemporaneous satirist, says, declar- 
ing : "There will be nothing further which posterity 
may add to our evil manners. Every vice stands al- 
ready at its topmost summit." And Matthew Arnold 
writes concerning the same time: 

" On that hard pagan world disgust 
And secret loathing fell ; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 
Made human life a hell." 



What Think Ye; of Christ? 103 

And this was the world in the eighth century 
after the founding of Rome. And then, slowly 
and heavily, that old civilization turned on its 
hinges and the world began to have a better hope; 
and for eighteen hundred years, with varying suc- 
cess, it has been slowly turning to the light. 
What brought this about? The two hinges of 
this revolution were the grave of Joseph of Ari- 
mathea and the cross of Calvary. Jesus Christ was 
born and talked as we have seen, and lived as we 
have seen, and died as we have seen, and rose as we 
have seen. For eighteen hundred years Christianity 
has been the life-bringer to the nations of the world, 
and Christianity is hurrying forward in its con- 
quests. You think it is slow; but, compared with 
every other century, during the last it has been so 
rapid that it seems as though the wheels of the 
chariot of salvation might catch fire in the speed of 
their flight. The past century has seen nations turn- 
ing to God, Japan adopting the Christian calendar, 
so that now every edict that goes forth from its em- 
peror begins Anno Domini. And soon, soon — my 
Lord, let it not be long — this round world, over 
every part, shall take up songs of praise to its right- 
ful Lord and King. 

Now, beloved, what think ye of Christ? Whose 



104 Religious Certainties. 



Son is He? Who is He? I wish I could call the 
witnesses. John the Baptist, what thinkest thou of 
Christ? "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sin of the world." John, beloved apostle, 
what thinkest thou of Christ? "We beheld His 
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the 
P'ather, full of grace and truth." Paul, greatest of 
apostles and greatest of men, what thinkest thou 
of Christ? "God forbid that I should glory, save 
in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ." 

And if I could take the later apostles, I should be 
glad to do that. Jonathan Edwards, head of New 
England Calvinism, what thinkest thou of Christ? 
Hear him answer (and it was on this text he was 
converted), "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, 
invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory 
for ever and ever. Amen." Do you know why he 
was converted on that ? Because it comes just after 
this — the stern Calvinist had just read, "This is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of 
whom I am chief." John Wesley, what thinkest 
thou of Christ? I would like to give you twenty 
things from Wesley; but at the last the dear old 
saint, lying on his death-bed, repeated : 

" I the chief of sinners am, 
But Jesus died for me." 



What Think Yd of Christ? 



I would like to call the poets. Toplady, what 
thinkest thou of Christ? 

" Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in thee." 

Charles Wesley, sweetest of all singers, next 
after David to be leader of the heavenly choir (as I 
think), what thinkest thou of Christ? 

" Thou, O Christ, art all I want ; 
More than all in thee I find. " 

Perronet, bird of a single song, but O how 
sweet! what thinkest thou of Christ? 

" All hail the power of Jesus' name, 
Let angels prostrate fall ; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all." 

O, I wish I could draw the veil and get answer 
from the white-robed company around the throne, 
if they could listen to us for a moment- — "What 
think ye of Christ?" I know their song. Would 
that we might hear them sing it now as we shall in 
the near to-morrow when we shall join them: "Now 
unto Him that hath loved us and washed us from our 
sins in His own blood, and hath made us to be kings 
and priests unto God the Father, to Him be glory, 



io6 Reugious Certainties. 



and honor, and blessing, and power for ever and 
ever." 

And if we could draw the veil and might hear 
and take in the whole range of the heavenly choir, 

" Where saints and angels, joined in concert, 
Hymn the praises of the Lamb, " 

we would hear them sing, for John heard it and 
told us : "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to re- 
ceive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, 
and honor, and glory, and blessing." 

O beloved, what think ye of Christ ? I challenge 
you one by one to give answer. At the first dawn of 
this morning the light stole in at my window and 
wakened me. And I began to revolve in my mind 
the outlines of this train of thought which I have 
just laid before you. Before I knew it, I found 
myself singing again and again, 

" Farewell, mortality, Jesus is mine ; 
Welcome, eternity, Jesus is mine." 

My friends, can you say from the heart this 
morning, "Jesus is mine! Jesus is mine!'' Can 
you? Can you? God help us to say it until Jesus 
shall say to us, face to face, "Thou art Mine 1" 



IV. 



OUR CRISIS. 

(Pennsylvania State Methodist Convention, 
Harrisburg, Pa v October 23, 1900.) 

"Who knoweth whether thou art come to the king- 
dom for such a time as this?" — Esther iv, 14. 

The name of God is not in the Book of Esther, 
but the hand of God is. In this respect, this book is 
quite like the book of nature and the book of Provi- 
dence, neither of which declares the Ineffable Name, 
both of which are full of demonstrations of the pres- 
ence of the Almighty Person. It is to me an exceed- 
ingly interesting and instructive fact that the latest 
developments of philosophic research have more and 
more laid stress on the presence — the omnipresence, 
the omnipresent agency — of a personal God in the 
realms of nature and of history. Read the writings 
of John Fiske, whose skepticism will often startle 
you, and you will find, especially in his later books, 
that they abound in positive, demonstrative, eloquent 
107 



io8 Religious Certainties. 



declarations of the immanence of God in nature and 
of the omnipresence of God in all history, reminding 
you of the inspiring words of the ancient prophet, 
"The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout 
the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the be- 
half of them whose heart is perfect toward Him." 

I know not where you can find, either in the 
Bible or anywhere else, clearer proof of the pres- 
ence of God, of the working of God without mir- 
acles, through the most trivial incidents, and espe- 
cially through human beings, than in this Book of 
Esther. How does it come to pass that King Ahas- 
uerus, when the fate of the Jewish race was trem- 
bling in the balance, should select as queen, in place 
of the deposed and discarded Vashti, a Jewish 
maiden? How does it come to pass that just at the 
very time when the destiny of that people must be 
determined and events were conspiring speedily to 
lead to their inevitable destruction, "on that night 
could not the king sleep?" It may have been 
a mosquito that kept him awake ; it may have been 
too hearty a banquet the night before. And how did 
it come to pass that, not knowing how to entertain 
himself on that sleepless night, he should call in one 
of his servants to read the chronicles of the king- 
dom? Dry reading, one would think. How did it 



Our Crisis. 



109 



happen that just the passage in the chronicles should 
then be read which told that Mordecai, the Jew, 
had discovered and frustrated a plot for the assassi- 
nation of the king, and had had the two conspirators 
hanged ? And that when the king asked if anything 
had been done to reward this man who had saved 
his life, just then, when he wanted to call one of his 
chief courtiers to do honor to Mordecai, in the vesti- 
bule of the king's court was Haman, who had erected 
for Mordecai a gallows fifty cubits high, and that 
Haman should be commanded to go and pass 
through the city leading a richly caparisoned horse, 
on which Mordecai should sit to receive honor from 
all the people ? This book wonderfully demonstrates 
God's omnipresent power in behalf of his own 
cause ; and that he can now, and could then, in that 
age, when miracles were not infrequent, work out 
His magnificent designs without miracles, but by 
the most trivial incidents and by the agency of hu- 
man beings. 

Mordecai seems to me like another Abraham, be- 
lieving in God in spite of all appearances. This very 
impressive incident is told concerning him in Jewish 
legend. The Jewish writers say that Mordecai sent 
word to Esther that as he was going home the night 
before in great heaviness because of Haman's plot, 



no Religious Certainties. 



he met three Jewish children coming from school 
and asked them what they had learned that day. 
The first answered : "Be not afraid of sudden fear." 
(Prov. iii, 25.) The second: "Take counsel to- 
gether and it shall come to nought." (Isaiah viii, 
10.) The third : "I have made, and I will bear ; even 
I will carry, and will deliver you." (Isaiah xlvi, 4.) 
And Mordecai said : "O, the goodness of God, who 
out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ordains 
strength." His firm faith in God in spite of all ap- 
pearances is manifest in his message to Esther: 
"For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this 
time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance 
arise to the Jews from another place ; but thou and 
thy father's house shall be destroyed : and who know- 
eth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such 
a time as this?" 

This is, as briefly as I could state it, the historic 
setting of the text, which seems to me so proper for 
this hour. The destiny of the Jewish nation is 
trembling in the balance. God delivers His people 
through the agency of the timid, but at last brave, 
queen aroused by this startling challenge: "Who 
knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for 
such a time as this?" There have been very many 
crises in the history of the world, and I shall not 



Our Crisis. 



hi 



stop even to suggest a few of the greatest of them. 
Let me ask you to consider with me the world crisis 
through which we are now passing. The human 
race has been climbing for sixty centuries, nineteen 
of them since the Savior came ; in the main on an 
ascending track, now and then cut by deep, broad 
gulches; sometimes across arid valleys; but on the 
whole, upward, upward to many a hilltop of lofty 
observation and magnificent prospect; but such a 
height of elevation and of outlook upon its history 
and its destiny as the human race now occupies has 
never been reached before. Standing so near, only 
three months from the very ridge between the cen- 
turies, let us endeavor to get some sense of what the 
meaning and import of this crisis is. 

I shall have occasion to ask you to consider our 
inheritance, our perils and our possibilities. How 
immensely richer the world is because of certain in- 
dividuals who have lived in it! Abraham, Moses, 
Socrates, Paul, Galileo, Susannah Wesley, Florence 
Nightingale, Fulton, Watt, Newton, Luther, Crom- 
well, Washington, Lincoln; and "what shall I more 
say?" I can cull but one little cluster from the im- 
perishable roll of the world's great benefactors. 
How immensely the race has been gaining through 
the crises which occurred when these persons lived, 



ii2 Religious Certainties. 



and by the influence which they poured forth into 
civilization for the uplift of the world. The closing 
century has been pre-eminently an era of progress 
in many lands; progress in things material, intel- 
lectual, moral, scientific, literary, educational, naval, 
military, governmental. I know these terms over- 
lap, but all of them and many more are necessary to 
set forth the vast and multitudinous progress of the 
recent age. 

I. First let us consider onr inheritance. "Other 
men labored, and we have entered into their labors." 
I can not now attempt to mention the particulars or 
even to suggest the main phases of the amazing and 
immeasurably important material and moral prog- 
ress of the world. There is no time for that. I can 
hardly even allude to certain things on these lines 
which stand so closely related to our religious prog- 
ress that they seem almost a part of it, such as the 
steam engine, the telegraph, agricultural machinery, 
and the printing-press. A great many things are at 
the very roots of the development of the civilization 
and morals and religions of the world. I pass them 
by, however, and ask you to give attention especially 
to the religious progress of the world, especially in 
this century, so near the close of which we stand — 
comparing slightly here and there with the centuries 
that have gone before. 



Our Crisis. 



113 



"Watchman., what of the night?" That is our 
question, and we sang it just now in our hymn of 
faith and hope. ''The morning cometh.'" That is 
the watchman's answer. It is not without mists ; 
not without glooms; but "the morning cometh." 
How welcome is the morning; how beautiful is the 
morning! Have you been at sea, tossing in your 
restless berth away on into the hours of night, list- 
ening, listening; and then have you heard a voice 
calling back, to your great relief and comfort, "Eight 
bells, and all 's well?" How welcome is the morn- 
ing! But the pessimist says: "Morning? There is 
no morning. Night sits on the throne, and eternal 
darkness is at hand. The world has gone to the bad. 
Politics are corrupt. The morals of the people go 
from worse to worst. Religion is losing its hold." 
Well, if that be true, there must be a dreadful mis- 
take somewhere, for I hear Solomon say : "The path 
of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more 
and more unto the perfect day." I hear David say : 
"Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy 
dominion endureth throughout all generations." I 
hear Isaiah cry: "He shall not fail nor be discour- 
aged, till He have set judgment in the earth: and 
the isles shall wait for His law." At length I hear 
the angels sing: "I bring you glad tidings of great 
8 



ii4 Religious Certainties. 



joy, which shall be to all people. Glory to God in 
the highest and on earth peace, good will to men," 
and I hear Jesus say : "Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the gospel to every creature." O, pessimist, 
you must excuse me if I accept the word of Solo- 
mon, and of David, and of Isaiah, and of the angels, 
and of Jesus, rather than your word. "The morning 
cometh!" 

I must ask you to glance at the progress of the 
kingdom in respect to its length and breadth ; that is, 
the territorial extent of Christianity in the earth. 
The length and breadth of the kingdom are full of 
encouragement to us. Go back a little; you need 
not go back very far, and consider what, in the times 
of the oldest man here present, was the case in the 
heathen world. Not very long since in India there 
came a change of the rule which had lasted for 
eight hundred years under Mohammedan princes — 
sixty-five of them — many of whom were the most 
bloodthirsty wretches that ever sat on thrones, and 
who might each be described by the words of 
Thomas Moore : 

" One of that saintly murderous brood, 
To carnage and the Koran given, 
Who think through unbelievers' blood 
Lies the directest road to heaven." 



Our Crisis. 



115 



There came a change. It came slowly, but it 
has effectually come, and now the flag of a Chris- 
tian nation waves all over India, as the symbol of 
the best government India has ever had. Mission- 
ary societies of many lands have gone there, and 
their work is successful. Our own Church has 
among those most degraded of heathen 90,000 Meth- 
odist communicants and 125,000 Sunday-school 
scholars. 

It is only a little while since Japan was utterly 
closed to the gospel, and after the terrible butch- 
ery of the Roman Catholic propagandists and 
the extermination of that form of Christianity, this 
edict went forth : "So long as the sun shall warm 
the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to 
Japan, and let all know that the king of Spain him- 
self, or the Christian's God, or the great God of all, 
if He violate this command, shall pay for it with 
His head." But it was impossible that shipwrecked 
sailors of a great nation like ours should be put to 
death on desolate coasts without effective protest. 
Civilization must assert the right of God's children 
to live on any coast on which they are cast ; and so 
three of our warships crossed the ocean and entered 
the harbor of Yokohama (I have been on the very 
spot) ; and Commodore Perry in 1853, on a Sunday 



n6 Reugious Certainties. 



morning, spread the flag over his capstan and laid 
the Bible on it, and gathered his officers and crew 
around him, and they sang together : 

" All people that on earth do dwell, 

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice, 
Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell, 
Come ye before Him and rejoice." 

And there was no need to fire any guns; the flag 
sufficed. Hospitality was given to American sailors, 
and Japan was born anew almost in a day, and now 
stands side by side with our country and all Europe 
in demanding indemnity for the murder of Christians 
in China ! Christianity has spread until now the 
proposition scarcely needs any modification that the 
whole world is open to the gospel, and the gospel 
is going into all the world. 

I can not pause longer on the territorial progress 
of the kingdom, but let us look at its numerical prog- 
ress. Now I know very well that some doctrinaires 
attempt to show that civilization has made the 
changes I am going to speak of, and rather than 
argue with them I just quote the words of two men, 
certainly neither of them religious bigots, and both 
of them great thinkers, Mr. Froude and Mr. Carlyle. 
Mr. Froude says: "All that we call modern civil- 
ization in a sense which deserves the name is the 



Our Crisis. 



117 



visible expression of the transforming power of the 
gospel." Mr. Carlyle says : "The Christian religion 
must ever be regarded as the crowning glory, or 
rather the life and soul, of our whole modern 
culture." These renowned authors are profound, 
philosophic students of history. Let me, then, in 
the light of such characterization, give you just a 
glance and hint at the numerical progress of the 
Christian religion. I speak now of its adherents, 
not of communicants alone of Christian Churches, 
but of those who believe in Christianity rather than 
in some other religion. The figures I give you are 
believed to be substantially accurate: At the end of 
the first century there were five million Christian be- 
lievers ; at the end of the tenth, fifty millions ; at the 
end of the fifteenth, one hundred millions ; at the end 
of the eighteenth, two hundred millions ; at the end 
of the nineteenth, five hundred millions ; so that the 
number has more than doubled within a century. 
Did you hear that statement? The number of peo- 
ple on this earth who profess their belief in Chris- 
tianity has more than doubled within a century. Still 
further, one-third of the world's population governs 
two-thirds of its people; it is the Christian nations 
which are the brainy nations, the wealthy nations, 



u8 Religious Certainties. 

the ruling nations, the progressive nations of the 
world. 

Let us glance at the wealth of the world. I shall 
not be misunderstood by this company. Isaiah tells 
of the glorious day when the gold and the silver are 
to be brought to Jesus' feet ; and there is an impor- 
tant sense in which money constitutes the sinews 
of our holy war, as well as of the unholy wars 
which desolate the nations. The wealth of the world 
is said to be thus divided, according to the latest 
census : France, forty billions of dollars ; Great 
Britain and Ireland, forty-five billions of dollars; 
the United States, sixty billions of dollars. The two 
great Protestant nations are by far the wealthiest 
nations on the face of the earth ; and if their re- 
sources are consecrated they can take the world for 
Jesus Christ. Then as to the countries professing 
the Christian faith. The Greek Church countries 
have thirty billions of dollars; Roman Catholic 
countries, ninety-five billions ; Protestant countries, 
one hundred and fifty billions. Within the last four 
days I have noticed a statement just published by 
the Comptroller of the United States concerning the 
savings bank deposits in this country, which runs 
thus: There are in the United States 5,600,000 de- 
positors in savings banks; the deposits amount to 



Our Crisis. 



119 



$2 3 4OO,0O0,ocdo ; more than $400 each. These are 
the savings of the poor. And what is still more 
startling to me is the fact that within one year the 
increase in the number of depositors in the United 
States is 300,000, and the increase in deposits is 
$174,000,000, the average being $580 each. To say 
nothing of the rich, if we could secure one-tenth of 
what the poor have deposited in savings banks within 
three years, that one-tenth would yield twice over the 
twenty millions wanted for our Twentieth-century 
Fund ! The resources of the United States alone, if 
only they could be baptized with the Holy Ghost 
and let loose, are enough to save the world, so far 
as money is concerned, as quickly as men could be 
got to bear the message into all lands. 

Concerning religious progress in the United 
States, a few words. What is the religious popu- 
lation of the United States; that is, communicants 
multiplied by three (many say three and one-half). 
Protestants, forty-nine millions; Roman Catholics, 
nine millions ; non-Christians, six millions ; that is, 
according to the census of 1890. What is the growth 
in Protestant Church members? Here is a new 
proposition. Is there a substantial and large growth, 
or are secularity and irreligion going to swamp the 
Church ? In the year 1800, seven and a half per cent 



i2o Reugious Certainties. 



of the population of the United States were members 
of Protestant Churches; in 1850, fifteen per cent; 
1890, twenty- two and one-half per cent. In the 
first year of this century one person in fourteen of 
the population was a Church member. Now one in 
four and one-half. The records show this. The 
progress has simply been immense. As to our own 
Church (for I must pause a moment there now) ; 
we have had our anxieties, many of them deserved, 
some excessive. I want to say that the skies are 
clearing; that the bugle-blasts of the twentieth cen- 
tury forward movement have been listened to by a 
glad and responsive and consecrating Church, and 
a steady gain has begun. But, we are told, there is 
a great deal of indifference and a great deal of un- 
belief in the Churches. Some deny the Deity of the 
Son of God. Some proclaim universal salvation, 
and men sleep on in their sins. Well, now, how many 
do you suppose, over against the six millions of 
Methodist communicants and the five millions of 
Baptist communicants in this country — how many do 
you suppose are members of Unitarian Churches? 
Their records show 67,700. How many Universal- 
ists? 49,194. 

It is not possible for me now to attempt any 
elaborate statement whatever of those moral re- 



Our Crisis. 



121 



sources in ideas ascertained and made strong in the 
minds of men, which are in force and underlie these 
facts concerning the progress of the kingdom. I 
will not attempt any such elaboration. But allow 
me just to give you a hint at what my notes would 
lead me to say if I had the time. 

We have for our encouragement not only a vast 
array of facts, as incontestable as the law of gravi- 
tation or the granite foundations of the globe; we 
have also an immense treasury of ideas and forces. 
Of these I can only glance at a few : enthusiasm 
for the truth ; the fullness of the dispensation of the 
Holy Spirit; the demonstrated power of the gospel 
to save men of all races, climes, and grades of intel- 
lectual culture ; the recent very glowing and now 
magnificent apprehension by the world at large of 
the glory of the personality of Jesus Christ, and the 
pre-eminence accorded Him in all theological belief 
and in all moral ideals of men who have any faith 
about religion at all ; the multiplication of Bibles, 
so that in a single year more have been set going 
in the world than existed in the first year of this cen- 
tury ; the rise and wonderful out-march of the Sun- 
day-school ; the multiplication of religious literature ; 
the numerous Young Men's and Young Women's 
Christian Associations, and of Young People's Soci- 



122 Reugious Certainties. 



eties in almost all branches of the Church, and the 
magnificent and growing recognition of the work of 
women in the Church, and in philanthropy and 
moral reform. These are hints at the resources, in 
ideas and in demonstrated truths, which are now the 
solid foundations of the whole work and outmarch 
of the Christian Church. So much for our inherit- 
ance. 

II. Much more briefly concerning our perils. 
Here I had meant to elaborate and enlarge, and to 
say sundry things that are very deep in my con- 
victions; but I shall content myself by just naming 
a few things as to our perils: Wrong relations of 
capitalists and wage-earners, including two great 
evils — the corrupting influence of exaggerated and 
misused wealth, and the misdirection and anarchistic 
excitement of the aspirations of working men ; the 
gradual tendency toward the destruction of the Sab- 
bath as a day of rest and of worship; the steady 
growth and present enormous influence of Satan's 
imperial guard — the liquor power; the undermining 
of reverence for the Book of God proceeding from 
several causes, among which I name the destructive 
influence of the higher criticism, the decay of the 
family altar, and the substitution of lesson leaves 
for the very Book of God itself in the Sunday- 



Our Crisis. 



123 



school ; the dilution of spiritual power in the Church 
resulting largely from the immense material pros- 
perity, which has, in many cases, choked the Word, 
and partly from the multitude of unconverted Church 
members carelessly brought into our ranks by the 
easy respectability which thus comes to them, and 
often through the influence of rosewater evangelists 
who make no effective appeals to the conscience and 
awaken in the minds of men no deep and alarming 
sense of the awful guilt and pollution of sin and the 
peril of the eternal punishment of sin ; political cor- 
ruption, which makes the primaries an utter travesty 
of the idea of the influence of the people in popular 
government; the increasing and destructive power 
of political bosses and the corruption of legislation 
and of the courts by methods no more defensible 
than open bribery; the menace of the Church and 
even of civilization itself by the heterogenous crim- 
inal and vicious population of our large cities ; the 
secularization to some extent, let us frankly confess, 
of the ministry and of the Church, so that by the 
"best appointments" is too often meant those which 
pay the largest salaries, and not those which afford 
the best opportunities for hard and rewarding work 
for the Master. This enumeration might be multi- 
plied ; but, for lack of time, I can not elaborate even 



124 Reugious Certainties. 



what I have thus said in barest outline. These seem 
to me some of the greatest perils which confront the 
Church on the eve of the opening century. 

III. Now I must turn to our possibilities. There 
is a physiological philosophy of history which tells 
us that nations, like individuals, must pass through 
the regular course of birth, youth, manhood, mature 
age, decay, and death. That doleful philosophy had 
as its foremost American exponent Dr. John W. 
Draper. There are facts of history that seem to 
justify it. Where are the nations that have been? 
How many nations now on the earth have stood a 
thousand years ? It is easy for the pessimist to make 
an argument along this line, and to show the prob- 
able truth of the philosophy of Dr. Draper; but is 
there no better hope for humanity and for the nations 
and for the Church in the midst of the nations? I 
think there is, and I soberly look to see the Stars 
and Stripes and the Royal Cross of St. George float 
aloft, honored in every land and on every sea until 
they perish amid the wreck of all things terrestrial 
in the fires of the last day ! And how dare I enter- 
tain such a hope as that ? Ten righteous men would 
have saved Sodom. Ten million righteous men can 
save America and can save England. God has not 
forsaken His throne. There is many a Mordecai 



Our Crisis. 



125 



ready to cry in the darkest hour "deliverance shall 
come," if not through you, then through some other ; 
and I venture to-day to quote the words of one 
whose name has long been, and for many an age 
will be, a glory in our Church and in our land. 
Some of you heard him say it long ago — our vener- 
ated Bishop Simpson: "If God means the salvation 
of this world He can not spare the United States 
of America." 

O, the possibilities which are before us ! Stand- 
ing at the end of the century so full of demonstra- 
tions of God's presence in the world; and, in spite 
of all its faults and sins, marked by progress so 
magnificent on all lines, material, moral, and relig- 
ious ; and looking forth into a century in which the 
forces of good and evil must be in tremendous con- 
flict, what a vision dawns before my eyes ! — for I 
believe in God and in His most Holy Word, and that 
the time hastens when the glory of God shall fill the 
whole earth as the waters cover the sea. Who can 
at all surmise what developments the growing king- 
dom of the only rightful King may speedily have in 
the realms of government? I was told out in Indi- 
ana only a few months ago, when there were five 
candidates for governor before the people, that every 
man of them was a member of some Christian 



i26 Religious Certainties. 



Church, and that three of them were Methodists; 
and that in Indiana no party dares to put up a man 
for high office who is not either a member of a Chris- 
tian Church or at least "positively respectful to the 
Christian religion. I tell you the day will come (for 
prophecy is a part of God's history) when ''kings 
shall be the nursing fathers and queens the nursing 
mothers" of the Church; when demagogues shall 
have had their day, and righteous men who fear God 
shall be in the high places of power. And then in 
the relations between capital and labor, and in the 
necessity of such readjustment in this quarter that 
men shall think more of their duties than of their 
rights, and shall remember that, high or low, rich 
or poor, men are brothers, and that every man is his 
brother's keeper ; what possibilities of service lie be- 
fore the Christian Church ! Then in respect to what 
I have denominated Satan's imperial guard — the 
liquor power. O, brothers, it is not simply a matter 
of prayer and of wish ! It is a matter in many a 
heart of prophecy that the day will come (because 
it ought to come and must come) when divinely led, 
perhaps in paths that we now know not, the friends 
of order, and of law, and of morality, and of temper- 
ance, and of Jesus Christ, shall somehow be banded 
together to give the death-stroke to this mightiest 



Our Crisis. 



127 



minion of Satan among men. So in literature, so 
in commerce, and so in science, the kingdom is 
working on with its saving leaven. 

The only question is, How soon ? My faith takes 
wing, not alone here on this platform this morning ; 
it has done so hundreds of times in private prayer 
and in my meditation on the great things of the king- 
dom. My faith takes wing and says, the resources 
are so ample ; the wealth within the Christian Church 
now is so great, if only it were consecrated for the 
work God has for it to do ; the real deep sentiments 
and beliefs and lives of Christian people are now so 
mighty, if they could come to the front and assert 
themselves always and not be overpowered by the 
chill of sin and of unbelief; the resources of intel- 
lectual culture through the schools and colleges are 
so great; the whole ecclesiastical machinery for the 
world's salvation is now so very abundant and mag- 
nificent, that often and often my faith has taken 
wing, as it does now, and declares, if only these ap- 
pliances could have a new baptism of the Pentecost 
the millennium might come in a decade. 

O, ye Methodists, "who knoweth whether ye are 
come to the kingdom for such a time as this ?" We 
see the grandeur of our inheritance ; we see the re- 
ality and threatening character of our perils, and on 



128 Religious Certainties. 



this mountain-top of observation we ought to see 
more clearly what our possibilities are. The world 
expects great things of us. We should be deeply 
moved by this consideration. Men expect of us 
soundness of doctrine, and not in vain. We have 
no occasion to change our creed. Our lawmakers 
at the General Conference examined the good ship 
Zion, and proposed very numerous changes and re- 
pairs; but now that she has started out for another 
four years' cruise she looks very much like the same 
ship ; a new sail here and a new spar there, and not 
an ecclesiastical tinker was rash enough to propose 
any change in our doctrines. Dr. Park, of Andover 
Seminary, said to Dr. Ridgaway some years ago: 
"The Methodist Church has greater responsibility 
than any other religious body in this country for the 
maintenance of sound religious faith." 

The world also expects of us a genuine, heart- 
felt, growing religious experience. It expects us, 
still further, to be among the foremost of the 
Churches in carrying aloft the banner of glowing 
and transforming evangelistic power. It expects 
us to proclaim salvation now and free for all, and 
to carry this proclamation everywhere throughout 
the land. I will not dwell further on the things 
to which we are bound by oui traditions and our 



Our Crisis. 



129 



history. This must suffice. It shows to me the 
immensity of the responsibility of Methodism, made 
greater by the vast number God has brought to our 
altars, to be in the forefront of the evangelistic 
movements in these United States ; and to gird our- 
selves in this glorious time with our magnificent 
Church polity which is pre-eminently adapted to 
the movements of an army of conquest, to go forth 
and take this land for Jesus Christ. 

But I must close. The great sculptor, Donatello, 
left as a priceless treasure for Florence the splendid 
statue of St. George. When the greatest of sculp- 
tors came to look at it all Florence was alert. There 
was St. George on his lofty pedestal. Michael 
Angelo looked at it, and looked and looked. The 
features seemed to him perfect, the figure faultless, 
the pose magnificent. His eye glowed with rapture 
of admiration. The crowd around waited to hear 
what the master would say. At last his lips opened 
and he quietly said, "Now, march." The marble 
seemed to him alive. I say to Methodism to-day, 
Now, march. O, Zion, "arise, shine, for thy light is 
come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." 



9 



V. 



ALL THINGS FREELY GIVEN. 

(Camp-Meeting, Lakeside, O., August 13, 1885.) 

"He that spared not*His own Son, but delivered 
Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him 
also freely give us all things?"— -Rom. viii, 32. 

This is one of those great passages of Scripture 
which ministers frequently hesitate to put at the 
head of their sermons, fearing that in attempting 
to explain they shall weaken, and in attempting to 
enforce they shall mar them. If the great apostle 
who wrote these words were here this morning to 
expound them, then might you hope in good meas- 
ure to understand them, for he was inspired by God ; 
and I suppose he could now explain them a great 
deal better than he could have done when he first 
wrote them; for since that time he has had some 
eighteen hundred years' experience of the "all 
things" of which he wrote. 

This is quite like another passage, namely, "If 
130 



Aiviy Things Freexy Given. 131 



when we were enemies we were reconciled to God 
by the death of His Son, much more, being recon- 
ciled, we shall be saved through His life :" another 
of the great arguments of this logical apostle, the 
sublime sense of which bursts upon the mind like a 
near chain of lofty mountains, and yet so simple 
that a Christian child can take in the chief thought 
of it. How can it be hoped that a preacher can 
explain or enforce passages of Scripture so plain 
and so forcible as my text, and as the parallel text 
I have quoted? 

But I seem to be giving reasons for which I 
ought not to attempt to preach on this text; and 
yet I have chosen it because I have long since 
learned that whenever we dig for gold in the mines 
of God, we never get the whole wealth of the mine 
on the surface : the deeper we dig the more we get. 
So let us reverently inquire into the meaning of 
this great argument of the Apostle Paul ; which sug- 
gests, first, God delivering up His Son; then the 
reasons God had for sparing His Son; and lastly, 
the irresistible argument drawn from the fact that 
God did not spare His Son, but delivered Him up 
for us all. 

I. First, God delivering up His Son, To what ? 
And for what? 



132 Reugious Certainties. 



1. To begin with, to incarnation as a man. He 
took our nature; not simply our flesh, our nature. 
He had a human mind, heart, will, and conscience, 
just as truly as a human body. You are not to 
think of the Lord Jesus Christ as simply the eternal 
Spirit inhabiting a human body for a while. He was 
really and truly a man in every essential of human 
nature, sin apart. God took our nature into eternal 
union with His own, so that there now sits on the 
throne of heaven a man ; God also, but man ; the 
God-man. The second Article of Religion in the 
Methodist Discipline says that in Him "two whole 
and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and 
manhood, were joined together in one person, 
never to be divided." August and majestic thought ! 

2. But he took this nature of ours under very 
lowly conditions. He was a poor man. Not a 
pauper; you are not to think of Him as literally 
begging His bread from door to door; but He was 
a poor man, a hard-handed workingman, a carpen- 
ter; not only the reputed son of a carpenter, but 
Himself a carpenter. His neighbors said about 
Him afterwards, "Is not this the carpenter, the Son 
of Mary?" They all knew Him. He had been 
employed for small wages building fences and barns 
and houses. He drove the saw and the plane and 



All Things Freely Given. 133 



wielded the hammer; and, a son of toil himself, He 
came into the vale of humanity with like toilers, 
to be the poor man's friend forever. When He 
came to mature age and to His public ministry and 
began to go about preaching His own Gospel, He 
literally had nothing except what was given Him. 
He was obliged to say to one too hasty disciple who 
offered service without counting the cost, "Foxes 
have holes, and birds of the air have nests;" as 
though to say, not only the creatures that roam 
the surface of the earth, but those that burrow into 
it and those that fly about it have their appropriate 
homes, "but the Son of man hath not where to lay 
His head." He owned no house and no bed in the 
world which He had built. When night came He 
was dependent (during His public ministry) on 
somebody's charity for a place to sleep. 

I call to mind that in my first pastoral charge in 
Orange County, New York, in a little country vil- 
lage, there came one sleety November night a timid 
rap at my door. When I opened the door, there 
stood before me a scantily clothed, poor, and half- 
sick young man, who piteously begged me for food 
and lodging. I took him in and gave him his supper 
and lodged him for the night. When in the morning 
he turned to go on his way, in the bright sunshine 



i34 Rsugious Certainties. 



of a new day, tears stood in his eyes as he thanked 
me for that brief hospitality ; and I said to myself, 
"My Lord had not where to lay His head. Jesus 
was a homeless wanderer." 

3. He was delivered up also to the special ex- 
ercise of Satan's malice and of man's hate. There 
is a very affecting record given us by St. Mark at 
the beginning of his Gospel, who tells us that as 
Jesus came up from the waters of His baptism a 
voice from heaven said, "This is My beloved Son, 
in whom I am well pleased," and the Holy Spirit 
like a dove descended and rested upon Him. And 
the next words are these: "Immediately the Spirit 
driveth Him into the wilderness, and He was forty 
days tempted of Satan, and was with the wild 
beasts." Your Lord and mine in a forty days' duel 
with the devil, tried by every art of Satan; and 
then the record is, "Satan departed from Him for 
a season ;" not for long. Again and again every 
arrow in Satan's quiver was shot at the heart of the 
holy Son of God. Men despised Him, opposed 
Him, hated Him ; all sorts of men — the rich and the 
poor, the learned and the unlearned. To be sure, it 
is said in one place, "The common people heard 
Him gladly," but presently they cried, "Away with 
Him, away with Him ; crucify Him, crucify Him !" 



Aix Things Freexy Given. 135 



And even His own disciples turned against Him. 
O, look and see how in the last twenty-four hours 
before His death all bitterness was poured into His 
cup. Think of it; His holy ears rent by the three- 
fold, cursing denial of his chief apostle; his pure, 
peace-speaking lips blistered by the kiss of a traitor ; 
His brow girt about with thorns; His hands which 
lifted off the burdens of the world, and His feet 
which had run everywhere on errands of com- 
passion, nailed to the accursed cross ; His great 
heart of love burst from within by an infinity of 
anguish, and riven from without by the soldier's 
spear. 

4. Shall I say he was given up also to the wrath 
of God ? That I may not say, for the Bible does not 
say that; but I may say, for this it does say, "It 
pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He hath put Him 
to grief. He hath laid on Him the iniquity of us 
all. The chastisement of our peace is upon Him, 
and by His stripes we are healed." O, when I 
come to this great abyss of soul-crushing agony I 
draw back in horror. To all this God delivered 
Him up. 

For what? Three little words in the text tell 
us. O, sinners hear them ! "For us all." For us. 
Not for angels, they never needed any redemption; 



136 Religious Certainties. 



not for devils, they never had any redemption. For 
us, all this guilty race of human kind. For us, in 
our behalf, in our stead. 

" He took the dying traitor's place, 
And suffered in his stead ; 
For sinful man, O wondrous grace, 
For sinful man He bled." 

For us all. Thank God for that ; for us all. 

" Lord, I believe were sinners more 
Than sands upon the ocean shore ; 
Thou hast for all a ransom paid, 
For all a full atonement made." 

O, Church of God, cling to this truth, of the 
vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ ! It is the sheet- 
anchor of your hope. God delivered Him up for 
us all. 

II. Let us now go on, in the second place, to 
consider the motives God had to spare His Son; 
for unless He had such motives, and unless they 
were very mighty, what is the meaning of the text, 
"He that spared not His own Son?" Why say 
that, unless He wanted to spare Him, unless He felt 
moved to spare Him, unless He was pressed upon 
by measureless motives to spare Him? I believe 
that, a thousand times more earnestly than the king 
desired to deliver Daniel out of the lion's den, God 



Au, Things Freely Given. 137 

longed to deliver Jesus out of this infinite shame 
and scorn and pain and wrath. I know that when- 
ever we speak as to anything relating to the motives 
of God we must speak carefully, and not speculate 
wildly; but I feel very certain of three reasons for 
which God must have wanted to spare Jesus the 
horrors of Gethsemane and the agonies of Calvary. 

1. First, God saw in the Lord Jesus Christ a 
perfectly righteous man loaded down with im- 
measurable wrong. How do you feel in such a case 
as that ? Here is a man, your friend, your neighbor. 
You have known him for twenty years. You know 
him to be true, honest, just, and good, a steadfast 
friend, a perfectly sincere and upright man; and 
yet that may not certainly protect him against the 
arrows of calumny. At last slander begins to wag 
her envenomed tongue against him. False charges 
begin to fly, — you know not how, it is hard to trace 
them, — but evil reports increase until somebody 
comes forth and declares him to be an infamous 
man, and drags him into court; and there on the 
testimony of false witnesses, before a bribed judge 
and a packed jury, this man is on trial for his life. 
Now, does not every noble impulse command you 
to go to his side and prove his innocence if you pos- 
sibly can? God saw in the Lord Jesus Christ a 



138 Reugious Certainties. 



perfectly righteous man, who had never sinned once 
in all His life; and yet He was charged with blas- 
phemy, and the Jews demanded His death. Must 
not the holy God have longed to break in upon the 
scene and demonstrate the innocence of this holy 
man? 

2. Still further, God saw in Him not only a 
perfectly righteous man loaded down with im- 
measurable wrong, but His own and His only Son, 
all the Son He had ever had from all eternity. Here 
is a thought of dignity, and a thought of dearness ; 
the prince of the universe, and the Son of the eter- 
nal God. Let me extend my supposition. This man 
whom you know to be innocent, and whom wicked 
men have tried to ruin, is more than your friend 
and neighbor; he is your son. And you are not a 
private individual; you are the righteous king of a 
great realm, with absolute power. Nobody can 
stand against you for a moment ; no judge, no jury, 
no army; you are an absolute monarch. And this 
your son, whom you know to be innocent, is on false 
testimony charged with high crimes, and is con- 
demned to die. You must be more or less than 
man, you must be more or less than a human father, 
you must be more or less than the righteous king of 



Au, Things Freely Given. 139 



a mighty realm, or you will break in upon the scene 
and vindicate your son and punish his accusers. 

3. God had one more reason for wishing to do 
this; He saw in Jesus Christ a humble suppliant 
begging earnestly to be spared ? Do you note that ? 
This, your son, accused of high crimes and perfectly 
innocent as you know, is being led out to die by the 
verdict of a court of infamous injustice and wrong, 
and as he nears your palace gate you are on the 
balcony ; and as he comes by he cries out, "Father, 
O my Father, spare me now." O, no righteous 
father, having boundless power, has ever lived who 
would not on such an appeal instantly stop the in- 
famous cavalcade, and deliver the righteous man, 
and adjudge his wicked accusers to the punishment 
they so richly deserve. And yet — come with me 
across the brook Kedron. Come out here under 
this dark and solemn olive shade where Jesus has 
gone to pray ; and see Him here in sad Gethsemane, 
prostrate on His face on the ground, sweating great 
drops like blood ; and hear Him cry, "O, My Father, 
if it be possible let this cup pass from Me." Those 
heavens which the raven's cry can pierce are as 
brass above His head. Again, and even the third 
time (having risen to walk about to compose Him- 



140 Reugious Certainties. 



self if possible), He falls flat on his face, sweating 
blood and crying, "Father, Father, if it be possible 
let this cup pass from Me." And that ear which is 
touched by the cry of every one of these dear little 
children as at night they kneel at their mother's 
knee saying, "Now I lay me down to sleep ;" — that 
ear seems deaf to the cry of God's only Son, and 
in misery and in agony Jesus dies. 

III. Now, let us look again at the sublime ar- 
gument drawn from the fact that God delivered up 
His only Son to all this, in spite of all these reasons 
for sparing Him. What is the argument? Let the 
apostle state it once more. "He that spared not His 
own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall 
he not — how shall he not, with Him also, freely give 
us all things?" What an argument! It looks to 
me very much as though when Paul went into this 
argument he did not see exactly where he was com- 
ing out ; and I do not know that in saying this I say 
anything not perfectly consistent with his highest 
inspiration by the Holy Spirit. No, I think it was 
the Spirit that led him word by word through this 
argument. He seems to me to have been filling 
up in this chapter, until now he has got to a kind 
of rushing overflow, and he cries, "He that spared 
not His own Son but delivered Him up to all this 



Aw, Things Freexy Given. 141 



wrong and injustice and agony and blood and death 
for us all, will certainly give us" — everything we 
want? Away with such poverty of speech as that. 
Will give us earth and heaven? Away with such 
weak speech as that. He that hath done all this, 
"how shall He not, with Him, also freely give us all 
things?" If anybody thinks he sees anything in 
the way let him show it. "How shall He not?" He 
can not help Himself, and Satan can not hinder Him, 
and there is nothing in His way. He has given us 
His own Son, not as a beautiful gift of grace and 
love, but as a broken, bleeding sacrifice. "Now, 
then," says Paul, "how shall He not?" Bring out 
your strong reasons, ye objectors. Earth, heaven, 
and hell, bring out your reasons if you have any. 
Tell me what straw lies in the way of the eternal 
God pouring out everything He has for those to 
whom He has already given His only Son. 

I. Consider how this argument must bear upon 
God the Father. He has given us Jesus Christ; 
now, so far as He is concerned, what shall He stop 
at? He has nothing else left so good. We are 
told that John Summerfield, preaching on this text, 
once used this very simple and homely, but very im- 
pressive illustration: "You go to a silk store and 
buy a valuable piece of silk, and pay for it. Do you 



142 Reugious Certainties. 



ever think of asking the merchant what you are to 
pay for the wrapping-paper and the twine? You 
know that these are thrown in. You never give it 
a thought. So," said Summerfield, "all the wealth 
of God's bounty on earth, all the riches of His grace 
to tried and suffering believers, all the garnered 
opulence of heaven, are only the wrappings of the 
infinite gift already given. They are thrown in." 

There stands upon the seashore a palace. From 
its balcony the king is wont, after every great 
storm, to peer out over the sea in search of vessels 
in distress. One day, as the mists begin to part, he 
descries a frigate of the royal navy, sparless, mast- 
less, drifting on the breakers; and above the moan 
of the retreating storm he hears a mighty cry for 
help. He sends a life-boat to the rescue, with his 
only son at the helm. Strong arms pull away, but 
presently a despairing cry comes back, "Father, let 
us return, we shall all perish ;" but he waves his 
hand and shouts, "On, on to the rescue !" On they 
go, and bring away fifty men, and presently another 
fifty, and another and another, until the whole crew 
are safe on the king's lawns. Now this is my ques- 
tion: Will those poor fellows starve for lack of 
bread ? The king has risked the life of his only son, 
the heir to the throne, to save them. All the sup- 



Auv Things FrseivY Given. 143 

plies in the palace are theirs. God risked, nay, sac- 
rificed the life of His only Son to make our salva- 
tion possible. What will He now stop at to make it 
actual ? 

2. See how this argument must bear on God 
the Son. The touching record runs, "Having loved 
His own which were in the world, He loved them 
unto the end," and O, how He loved them! He 
loved them so much that when He was about to be 
separated from them He took in hand to give them 
measureless and infinite comfort; which He did in 
three whole chapters of John's Gospel, the four- 
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth. They are taken up 
with the Savior's valedictory address, that address 
which begins with this: "Let not your heart be 
troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me." 
And it goes on through three long chapters, — in- 
finite comfort, diamond after diamond, all riches of 
grace and consolation. I do not think there has been 
a believer on earth from then till now who could not 
find in that valedictory address comfort under all 
trials, help in every time of need, and a cure for all 
diseases. 

When I read it, it is so infinitely precious that 
it looks to me as though there is too much of it. 
After a few verses I come to this: "Whatsoever 



144 



Religious Certainties. 



ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it 
to you." At this point I sometimes feel like shut- 
ting up the Bible and saying, Blessed Christ, go 
home to Thy heaven now. Thou hast toiled, strug- 
gled, and suffered here on earth thirty-three years. 
Now go home to Thy heaven, for hast Thou not put 
in my hand the key of all blessedness? With this 
I can unlock earth and heaven. "Whatsoever ye 
shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it to 
you." O, I am rich enough, with this key to in- 
finite treasures ! He knows better than I ; He knows 
how poor my faith is, how faint my prayers will 
be, so He goes on piling up heaps on heaps of glit- 
tering diamonds, promises of every kind, through 
three whole chapters. 

Then, knowing how poor my prayers will be, He 
actually goes on after all that to pray for me Him- 
self, in one long chapter, the seventeenth of John; 
which would be enough by itself even if we had not 
the other three. In that prayer He prays for His 
Church, not for the world, as He had before and 
would again ; but not now. He says, "Father, I 
pray not for the world, but for them whom 
Thou hast given Me." And O, how He prays ! 
He says: "Father, while I was in the world I 
kept them. Now I come to Thee. Father, keep 



Aee Things Freely Given. 145 

through Thine own name those that Thou has given 
me. Father, I pray not that Thou shouldst take 
them out of the world." So I conclude this world 
is a good place to live in for a while, else He never 
would have said that. He would have said, "Father, 
take them out of the world as soon as they are con- 
verted, and bring them to heaven." He did not say 
that. He said : "Father, let them alone : I pray not 
that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but 
that Thou shouldst keep them from evil. Father, 
sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy Word is 
truth." How glad I am He prayed that ! "Father, 
make them all one, in order that the world may be- 
lieve that Thou hast sent Me." 

Then He goes on and says it over with a little 
enlargement, in words which stagger my knowl- 
edge, not my faith, for I can believe anything when 
I am reading that chapter. He says, "Father, make 
them all one as we are one, that the world may 
know that Thou hast sent Me and hast loved them 
as Thou hast loved Me." O, what a wonderful 
statement that is: let Him now go home to His 
heaven ; I have prayer enough now. No, He knows 
better : He stays a little longer that He may leave us 
ten times stronger; and cries, "Father, I will that 
they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me 

TO 



146 Religious Certainties. 



where I am:" I can not live in eternity without 
them : Father, bring them home. "I will ;" and He 
has a right to will, for He has the power to execute ; 
omnipotence is in His right hand — "Father, I will 
that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with 
Me where I am; that they may behold My glory" 
(blessed Christ, bring me there) — "that they may 
behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me." For 
they deserve it? O, no. For they are spotlessly 
holy? O, no. "For Thou lovedst Me before the 
foundation of the world." 

How glad I am to have my salvation tied to that 
condition. I know God loves the Lord Jesus Christ. 
There never was a quarter of a minute when He 
did not love Him, and never more than when ago- 
nizing on the ground in Gethsemane He was crying 
up through ebon darkness, "O, my Father, if it be 
possible, let this cup pass from Me;" never more 
than when in broken-hearted agony, there on the 
cross, He was saying, "My God, My God, why hast 
Thou forsaken Me?" He loved Him then better 
than ever, if possible. But Jesus says, "Father, 
bring them to heaven, for Thou lovest Me." So you 
see how this great argument of our text must bear 
upon God the Father and God the Son. 

3. Now, see how it ought to bear upon us. What 



Au, Things Freely Given. 147 

is the argument? Just let me restate it in a word. 
God has given us the best He had. God has hurled 
down at our feet, here in the dust of this world, the 
brightest diamond of heaven, the very Kohinoor 
of the universe. Here it is ; He has given us that ; 
now, will He stop at gold or silver or iron or wood 
or brass, the lesser things that we need? Look 
again at the text which I quoted in the introduction : 
"If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to 
God by the death of His Son, much more, being 
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." That is, 
if a dead Christ can save a sinner, can not a living 
Christ save a saint? 

"Freely give us all things." "How shall He 
not?" O, how that argument must 'have rolled 
through the magnificent mind of Paul when he 
wrote those words, in the grandest chapter in the 
Bible, as it looks to me this morning. But I am not 
quite sure about that. Sometimes I think if every- 
thing else was gone out of the Bible but the eighth 
of Romans we would have Bible enough left for 
the world to go to heaven on, and for any sinner 
to be saved by. It is infinitely precious, this eighth 
of Romans, yet I confess I have sometimes the same 
thought about the fourteenth of John, and the 
seventeenth of John, and the twenty-third Psalm, 



148 



Reugious Certainties. 



and the twenty-first of the Revelation, and the 
fortieth of Isaiah — and many more chapters. The 
truth is that when God shines into any soul through 
any window there is infinite light; and surely He 
shines through this chapter. 

"All things." That is what he proposes to us. 
O, ye poor, be rich. O, ye sorrowful, be happy. 
Ye are children of the King. He is coming to dis- 
tribute crowns presently. He lets you walk in the 
dust awhile, and perhaps in coarse clothing and 
with scanty food, but you are children of the King. 
You are children of the eternal God. He is King of 
all worlds. The crowning day will come presently. 
Then you will know better what all this means. 

I can refer to only a very few things, at the be- 
ginning of our splendid and exhaustless inventory 
of treasures. 

( I ) These "all things" include the whole foun- 
dation of our hope of pardon here and glory here- 
after. 

O, this wonderful man, Paul ! O, this glorious 
eighth of Romans ! It comes immediately after the 
seventh of Romans, and the seventh is that doleful 
place which some mistaken souls think it worth 
while to live in ; supposing that if once in a while, 
in some prayer-meeting or class-meeting, they man- 



Au, Things Freely Given. 149 



age to groan out, "What I would I do not: and 
what I would not, that I do : when I would do good, 
evil is present with me. . . . O, wretched man 
that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death?" — if not saints, they are on the road to 
sainthood. Let me tell all such wretched doubters 
and distressed half-believers an open secret. The 
seventh of Romans was never built for anybody to 
live in. Like the Slough of Despond, in Bunyan's 
immortal allegory, it is a notable place — to get 
out of. 

If you have been groaning in the seventh of 
Romans, come out and sing with the great logician 
poet in the eighth, "There is therefore now no con- 
demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." 
Poet? Yes. You never thought of that, because 
his logic submerges his poetry ; but the last eight 
verses of this chapter — indeed, I had almost said the 
whole chapter — is as true a poem as "Jesus, Lover 
of my soul," or the twenty-third Psalm. Hear him 
sing! He sings of no condemnation; sings of the 
witness of the Spirit ; he sings of the redemption of 
the body; of the deliverance of the groaning crea- 
tion ; he sings of the philosopher's stone, "We know 
that all things work together for good to them that 
love God;" he sings and soars; he soars and sings, 



150 Religious Certainties. 



until he comes to the thirty-first verse, when he 
cries out, "What shall we then say to these things?" 
as though to say, I must speak or die, and I have 
hardly begun yet. Then he sends forth the shout 
of the text, and quickly follows it with this amaz- 
ing challenge: "Who is he that condemneth ?" 

May I make a personal allusion? Why not? 
The fathers used to. Paul frequently told about his 
conversion. When I was ten years of age I began 
definitely to seek religion. I was nine years anx- 
iously waiting for the abiding witness of the Spirit. 
During those years when I heard Paul cry, "Who 
is he that condemneth?" I often felt like saying: 
Well, who are you who dare ask this question? 
Are you not that bold, bad man of Tarsus who per- 
secuted the saints of the living God ; and are you go- 
ing about asking, "Who is he that condemneth ?" If 
nobody else, in God's name, I fling down the gaunt- 
let, and challenge your statement. 

But fortunately for me, I kept my thoughts to 
myself until it pleased God, by another word of this 
same apostle, to bring me out of darkness into a 
great light ; namely, by this : "To him that worketh 
not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, 
his faith is counted for righteousness :" and then, 
when next I saw him stride forth before the armies 



AUv Things Frdexy Given. 151 



of the Philistines, shouting out his mighty challenge, 
"Who is he that condemneth?" I began to creep 
along in the track of his giant strides, whispering, 
Well, sure enough, who is he that condemneth? 
until presently I, too, was shouting it. 

He went on repeating it until it seemed to me 
to sound out through three worlds, "Who is he that 
condemneth?" and every demon was dumb. Not 
one of them peeped or muttered against this won- 
derful challenge of salvation by faith alone. "Who 
is he that condemneth?" and the world was silent. 
No persecuted saint accused him; indeed, they 
rather gloried in the victory of grace in him, bless- 
ing God that the destroyer of the Church had be- 
come an apostle. "Who is he that condemneth?" 
and heaven sent down no accusation ; no ascended 
saint, no angel, uttered a word; for God smiled. 
"It is God that justifieth. Who is he that con- 
demneth?" The court of last resort has quashed 
every indictment, and the sinner goes free. 

(2) Another of our treasures is union with 
Christ. Only "with Him" come the "all things." 

I have sometimes thought this one of the great- 
est marvels of our holy religion. When I remem- 
ber how bruised and sore the feet of Jesus were, 
and still more His heart; how rough the road He 



152 Religious Certainties. 

traveled here on earth; it has sometimes seemed 
to me that when He had "died for our offenses, and 
risen again for our justification," and ascended into 
heaven, He might have staid there and reveled 
in the celestial glory, and need not have come back 
here to be annoyed by the sluggishness of the 
Church, and the backsliding of professing Chris- 
tians, and the poverty of our best love. 

Might He not have left the Holy Spirit, as a 
kind of universal electricity, to come down into our 
hearts and dwell in them and transform them, while 
He Himself, the personal Christ, staid in His well- 
won heaven? Christians are so awkward and un- 
lovely. You know many of them whom in truth 
you believe to be sincere, whom you would not want 
to live with in the same house ; and you do not ex- 
actly know why your angles do not suit their angles ; 
either you or they are somehow infelicitous and in- 
compatible. They get into the Church and into 
official boards, and you do not know how to get 
along with them or how to get along without them. 
Now, do you know that of all these crooked, un- 
lovely people (and perhaps to some that remark 
means you and me) the Lord Jesus Christ in- 
sists on living with every one, dwelling in the heart 
of every one until he shall make that heart beautiful 



Au, Things Freely Given. 153 



with the glories of holiness, and present it to the 
Eternal Majesty on the great day, " without spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing?" 

(3) Another of the ''all things" is maintenance 
in love to God. 

Why are you here this morning? Why are you 
not in a saloon of dissipation, or in your home ut- 
terly forgetful of the Sabbath and the Bible? Be- 
cause of Christ's grace and love. Nothing else. 
Many a time your feet have grown weary and, per- 
haps, have slipped and stumbled; maybe you have 
discredited the Christian profession ; but you are 
here to-day and on the way to heaven. Why? Be- 
cause Christ has maintained you in His love. Satan 
uses no harder temptation for the timid believer to 
parry than this : "You are not a child of God. You 
do not love God." That "impudent old devil," as 
Luther called him, tries that temptation on almost 
all believers, and sometimes wins by dint of sheer 
demonic importunity. 

I am reminded of Galileo, who was the first to 
teach the revolution of the earth on its axis. For 
this heresy, as the Church of Rome thought it, he 
was brought before inquisitors and compelled to re- 
cant, which he did in these words: "I, Galileo 
Galilei, in the seventieth year of my age, on my 



154 Religious Certainties. 



bended knees before Your Eminences, having before 
my eyes and touching with my hands the holy Gos- 
pels, curse and detest this error of the earth's move- 
ment;" but as he went out into the open court, and 
his feet touched the ground, he said, "It moves." 
He knew it. They had extorted from him a reluct- 
ant denial with his lips only. 

Even so, "that impudent old devil" harries real 
but doubting believers, saying to them again and 
again: "You are no Christian. Remember your 
poor prayers. Remember your many sins. Remem- 
ber how rarely and poorly you read the Bible. You 
do not love God." And at length the despairing 
soul says, "Well, I don't love God; I am not a 
Christian." O, brother, look away once more to 
that cross on which He, the glory of the universe, 
hangs dying for your sin, and tell me if you can 
not at least say, with Cowper: 

" Lord, it is my chief complaint 
That my love is weak and faint, 
Yet I love Thee and adore : 
O for grace to love Thee more!" 

"Resist the devil, and he will flee from you;" 
and, in spite of all your weak faith and poor expe- 
rience, you may yet join in the great apostle's shout 
at the end of this poem: "Who shall separate us 



Au, Things Freely Givsn. 155 



from the love of Christ: shall tribulation, or dis- 
tress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or 
peril, or sword ? 

"Nay, in all these things we are more than con- 
querors through Him that loved us. 

"For I am persuaded [Yes, Paul, so am I] that 
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

But I am talking of "all things," so, of course, 
there is no natural termination to this sermon. Yet 
I "must stop. 

"All things." What does that mean ? O, breth- 
ren, how I would like to talk it over with Abel, or 
Abraham, or Paul ! They have been in heaven many 
centuries. We know the beginning now of this in- 
ventory, just its A and B and C. When we have 
been in heaven a million years we shall know the 
whole alphabet, and shall have put the letters to- 
gether into syllables, and the syllables into words, 
and the words into sentences ; and shall have begun 
to understand the history and philosophy and lit- 
erature and poetry of redeeming grace and celestial 
glory. Paul could tell us now what would fill us 



156 



Religious Certainties. 



with such rapture of home-sickness that we could 
not live on earth another minute, but would have 
to go home and find out for ourselves about the 
''all things." 

(4) Let me name last the felicities to which God 
proposes to lead us. I can not dilate upon these at 
any length. Jesus seems to have said to Himself: 
"O, those people of mine, how I love them ! Those 
feeble minds, those failing senses, those decaying 
powers, they are not good enough for my people, 
and I will give them new bodies with new senses. 
Those misjudging minds, those clouded intellects, 
those dull affections, are not good enough for my 
people, so I will give them new spiritual powers in 
an eternal world, where they shall see as they are 
seen, and know as they are known. That earth, 
that Church are not good enough for my people, 
so I will give them a new earth and a glorious 
Church. Religion as they have it now is not good 
enough for 1113- people, so I will give them some- 
thing better than that." What ! Religion not good 
enough for Christians? Well, what is it now? 
Largely hope; it shall be fruition. Largely faith; 
it shall be sight. O, what do you think of living 
in a country where beggars are taken into the bosom 
of Abraham; where there shall be no more suspi- 



Aih Things Freely Given. 157 



cion; no more distance; no more unloveliness ; no 
more jealousies or envies ; no more temptation ; no 
more sin ; no darkness ; no night ; no pain ; no devil ; 
no death? O, these negatives of heaven infinitely 
glorious to my apprehension, make me want to be 
there. I touch the subject and leave it; but I never 
touch it without feeling as I suppose the little girl 
did, who, as night was coming on, pressed her face 
against the window-pane and looked out into the 
gathering darkness to see the evening star appear, 
and then the other stars, one by one, until the whole 
heaven was filled with their glory. Then, her heart 
all enraptured, she turned to her mother, and ex- 
claimed, "O, mamma, if the wrong side of heaven 
is so beautiful, what must the right side be?" So 
if this poor hint of the heavenly bliss and glory is 
so enrapturing to our glad hearts, "what must it be 
to be there !" 

Let every heart join with mine in crying, with 
hope and trust, which God grant may never fail us, 

" Do thou, Lord, midst pleasure and woe, 
For that Heaven my spirit prepare ; 
And shortly I also shall know 
And feel what it is to be there." 



VI. 



MUNDANE VERSUS COSMIC CULTURE. 

(Dedication of University Hall and Hall of 
Sciences, Ham line University, St. Paul, 
Minn, January 30, 1884.) 

"0 Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy 
trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and 
oppositions of science falsely so called." — 1 Tim. 
vi, 20. 

"That their hearts might be comforted, being knit 
together in love, and unto all riches of the full 
assurance of understanding, to the acknowledg- 
ment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, 
and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treas- 
ures of wisdom and knowledge/' — Col. ii, 2, 3. 

The circumstances of this hour lead our thoughts 
very naturally to the subject of liberal education. 
In what does it consist, and how is it to be secured, 
I may better say achieved? No man can travel 
through any civilized country in this age of the 
158 



3 



Mundane: versus Cosmic Culture. i 3 g 



world without perceiving that the human mind is 
intensely alive to this question. Multitudes of 
buildings of all sorts have been erected for educa- 
tional purposes. Schools of all grades abound. Im- 
mense sums of money proceeding from public treas- 
uries and from private endowments are annually 
expended. Text-books adapted with painstaking 
care to every grade of advancement, fhe most elab- 
orate and curious apparatus for the illustration of all 
the sciences, libraries, periodical literature and 
other appliances, are largely and increasingly sup- 
plied. And best of all, the life labor of a multitude 
of the most intelligent men and women in the land, 
employed in the various departments of instruction, 
is devoted to the practical solution of this great 
question. What is aimed at in these elaborate ar- 
rangements and in the immense expenditure of time 
and money devoted to education? Compare Sir 
Isaac Newton with a Digger Indian, or the Connect- 
icut of 1884 with the Connecticut of 1493, and you 
may approximate the answer. "Approximate," I 
say, for all culture here on earth is a process, through 
which "an increasing purpose runs," and looking to 
some ultimate and supreme good. 

In this, however, as in other cases, fundamental 
errors vitiate long-continued and most laborious 



160 Reugious Certainties. 



efforts ; and it would be strange indeed if this blun- 
dering, sinful race of ours should not make such 
errors in its struggle upward toward true culture. 

My theme is Mundane versus Cosmic Cul- 
ture. 

I shall attempt to show that there is an exceed- 
ingly prevalent and pretentious idea of culture 
abounding in the world, commanding high respect 
and alimost homage, and yet dangerously false be- 
cause of its incompleteness, if for no other reasons ; 
a mundane culture, which would tolerably befit man 
if this mundane sphere were his only sphere, this 
mortal life his only career, and if he had no capac- 
ities or aspirations relating to any but earth-born 
beings; and then I shall attempt to show that there 
is possible to us here and now the grand beginning 
of a cosmic culture which fits man for every world 
he is ever to live in, and for his relations to all in- 
telligences in the universe. 

The one is narrow, the other broad. The one is 
one-sided, the other all-sided. The one pushes out 
very far and very brilliantly in certain directions, 
the other in all directions. 

I. The mundane culture of which I speak claims 
to be broad, all-sided, incapable of prejudice, im- 
partially hospitable to all truth. It has no sympathy 



Mundane: versus Cosmic Culture. 161 



with the humiliating view of human nature, set forth 
by theology, as being in a fallen and disjointed con- 
dition. To it sin is simply ignorance, and knowledge 
is the prolific parent of all the virtues. 

What I mean will best appear from the brilliant 
words of one of the most eloquent expounders and 
examples of this mundane culture. In a lecture on 
"A Liberal Education and Where to Find It," Pro- 
fessor Huxley compares this life to a game of chess 
and says : 

"The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the 
phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game 
are what we call the laws of nature. The player on 
the other side is hidden from us. We know that his 
play is always fair, just, and patient. But we know, 
to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake or 
makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the 
man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid with 
that overflowing generosity with which the strong 
show delight in strength. And one who plays ill 
is checkmated, without haste, but without remorse. 
Education is the instruction of the intellect in the 
laws of nature, under which name I include not 
merely things and their forces, but men and their 
ways, and the fashioning of the affections and the 
will into an earnest and loving desire to move in 
ii 



1 62 Reugious Certainties. 



harmony with these laws. For me education means 
neither more nor less than this." 

Now, no doubt Nature is one of our teachers. 
No doubt her lessons are immensely important to us. 
By falling and being bruised the child learns to 
stand. By blight and tempest and mildew the blun- 
dering tiller of the soil becomes the accomplished 
farmer. But is not this totally impersonal view of 
nature a thoroughly pagan view? Is there any 
grand quickening of soul to be got out of such a 
blind machine, whether it carries or crushes us? 
Let us pause, however, a moment longer to get the 
whole of Professor Huxley's definition, and to be 
sure we do him full justice. He says: 

"That man, I think, has had a liberal education 
who has been so trained in youth that his body is 
the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and 
pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is 
capable of, whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic en- 
gine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in 
smooth working order; ready, like a steam-engine, 
to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossa- 
mers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; 
whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great 
and fundamental truths of nature, and of the laws 
of her operations ; one who, no ascetic, is full of life 



Mundane versus Cosmic Culture. 163 

and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to 
heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender con- 
science ; who has learned to love all beauty, whether 
of nature or art, to hate all vileness, and to respect 
others as himself." 

Now let us give this theory of education all the 
credit it deserves. There is much in it that is excel- 
lent. Indiscriminate denunciation is unworthy of 
any seeker after truth, and especially of those truth- 
seekers who have begun at the center by a personal 
acquaintance with Him who is "the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life." If man were "a clear, cold, logic 
engine," and nothing more; if he had no heart and 
no spiritual needs and longings; if this world were 
his only possible residence and this life the whole 
term of his being ; this machine view of the universe 
would do very well for him if it were only the true 
one. But the wheels do not grind blindly on for ever- 
more ; they are "full of eyes round about ;" the "grass 
of the field" and the "fowls of the air" do not flour- 
ish and perish unnoticed and uncared for; much 
less we. 

The radical fault in this conception of education, 
is that it proceeds on a radically false, fatalistic, and 
pagan view of nature. It deals only with the shell of 
nature and ignores the kernel. It makes nature a re- 



164 Religious Certainties. 



morseless chess-player, watching for the first oppor- 
tunity to cry "checkmate," and end the game against 
us forever. Many of the poets who have had no 
more faith in a supernatural revelation than the least 
reverent of scientists have yet found a soul in nature 
full of infinite tenderness toward man. In them and 
not in men who have insisted on running their in- 
tellects as mere "logic-engines,'' the unaided mind 
of man has attained its profoundest insight into na- 
ture's teachings. Those unscientific and unchristian 
races who peopled the woods with fairies and the 
sea with mermaids were nearer the truth than those 
self-styled scientists and antichristian men of to- 
day who refuse to see anything in, under, above, or 
behind nature but matter and force. The heathen 
are at least always believers in the supernatural, and 
have built altars "to the unknown God." It was 
reserved for modern times to put the most stinging 
sarcasm into the old saying, "The world by wisdom 
knew not God." 

Another and no less fundamental error of this 
mundane culture is that it unscientifically leaves 
out of its calculations some of the most impor- 
tant elements of human nature and facts of human 
history. It also ignores the very richest means of 
culture. Both these grave defects will be more fully 



Mundane: versus Cosmic Culture:. 165 

referred to further on ; and must now be passed with 
but few words. Professor Huxley says he finds 
"no need of the hypothesis of a God." No need, for 
what purpose? For one or two steps in the expla- 
nation of natural phenomena? An atheist can take 
no more steps than that; his account goes about as 
far as that of those Orientals who located the earth 
on a coiled serpent, the serpent on the back of a tor- 
toise, and the tortoise on the back of an elephant, 
and then left the elephant, clumsily sprawling in 
vacancy, a very unscientific and unedifying spectacle. 

"No need of the hypothesis of a God !" Again I 
demand for what purpose? It would be charitable 
to suppose that the distinguished author of this 
statement means to limit his startling declaration to 
the material world ; and that in the realm of intuition 
and spiritual aspiration he will be found, like the 
greatest thinkers of the race, swift to proclaim at 
least the need of a God, if not also his actual exist- 
ence. But he has cut us off from the possibility of 
exercising this charity, by declaring : "I have always 
been strongly in favor of secular education, in the 
sense of education without theology." Not content 
to take the inspiring soul out of the natural sciences, 
he would take it also out of metaphysics, out of his- 
tory, literature, and even ethics. This mundane cul- 



1 66 Religious Certainties. 



ture would eviscerate every department of human 
inquiry, and instead of vital forms of knowledge in 
beautiful relations to each other, full, every one of 
them, of inspiration to every generous mind, would 
leave us only a ghastly array of grinning skeletons. 

II. The objections to this mundane culture which 
I have thus indicated, will more fully appear, and 
others will be suggested if we now pass on to con- 
sider what I have termed Cosmic Culture ; by which 
I mean the culture of the whole man in view of all 
his relations present and future; especially in view 
of these most momentous facts that he is a sinful 
being designed for holiness and a mortal destined to 
immortality. 

Let me fasten your attention on two very strik- 
ing, and if they were not so familiar we should call 
them startling, facts : i. That all over the world and 
all down the ages men have been longing, yearning, 
striving after perfection of knowledge and character ; 
and 2. That always and everywhere their sense of 
failure in this search has been most signal and their 
disappointment most bitter. I speak not now of the 
masses of the ignorant and the vicious, but of the 
type men of the race, those who have guided its de- 
velopment and who have filled its literature, poetry, 
history, and philosophy with their queries and the- 



Mundane; versus Cosmic Culture. 167 

ories. How they have longed for the summum 
bonum, the philosopher's stone, the Golden Age! 
Look at the struggles of the master minds of the race 
with this mighty problem; struggles, the despair of 
which is now and then relieved by a faint fore- 
gleaming of the dawn, as in the case of Plato, who 
in his "Phaedo" says: 

"One ought, with respect to these things [i. e., 
religious truths] either to learn from others how they 
stand, or to discover them for one's self ; or, if both 
these are impossible, then taking the best of human 
words and that which is most difficult of refutation, 
and embarking on this as one risks himself on a raft, 
so to sail through life. But would it were possible 
to go through more safely and with less risk on a 
stronger raft or some divine word !" 

Ages before his time there had been in the world 
a few scattered copies of a parchment manuscript 
which he never saw. Would he might have seen 
it ! It would have been to him "a stronger raft" and 
a "divine word." It is called the Book of Job. See 
how vividly it portrays Plato's and the world's most 
perplexing puzzle, and then solves it ! 

"But where shall wisdom be found? and where 
is the place of understanding? 



i68 



Religious Certainties. 



"Man knoweth not the price thereof ; neither is it 
found in the land of the living. 

"The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea 
saith, It is not with me. 

"It can not be gotten for gold, neither shall silver 
be weighed for the price thereof. 

"Whence then cometh wisdom ? and where is the 
place of understanding? 

"God understandeth the way thereof, and He 
knoweth the place thereof. 

"And unto man He said, Behold, the fear of the 
Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is 
understanding." 

Alas, that men who have this Book of Job and 
all the other books of the Bible, and some who pro- 
fess to believe them divine, should still prate of cul- 
ture as though God and the Bible could be left out 
of it, or made something less than all-pervading in it. 

Note now another very instructive fact. Men 
of this sort are from time to time driven by an in- 
ternal compulsion to pay their homage to what they 
will not admit to be the Book of God, as being at 
least the god of books. Denying its divine author- 
ity, representing that it is full of errors, they are yet 
constrained to admit its peerless magnificence and to 
do homage to its incomparable majesty. It wants 



Mundane versus Cosmic Culture. 169 

only the barest scientific honesty to extort from any 
intelligent skeptic the fullest concession of the unique 
and stupendous power of the Bible in molding the 
history and literature of the modern world. I do 
not propose to give you now the testimony of strenu- 
ous believers, but of famous unbelievers — and first 
of the arch infidel of America. 

Theodore Parker says : "This collection of books 
has taken such hold of the world as no other. The 
literature of Greece, which goes up like incense from 
the land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half the 
influence of this book from a nation despised alike 
in ancient and in modern times. ... It goes 
equally to the cottage of the plain man and the palace 
of the king. It is woven into the literature of the 
scholar, and colors the talk of the streets. It enters 
men's closets, and mingles in all the grief and cheer- 
fulness of life. Some thousand famous writers come 
up in this century to be forgotten in the next. But 
the silver cord of the Bible is not loosed, nor its 
golden bowl broken, as Time chronicles his tens of 
centuries passed by." 

Professor Huxley says: "I have always been 
strongly in favor of secular education, in the 
sense of education without theology ; but I must 
confess I have been no less seriously perplexed 



170 Religious Certainties. 



to know by what practical measures the relig- 
ious feeling, which is the essential basis of con- 
duct, is to be kept up, in the present utterly 
chaotic state of opinion on these matters, without the 
use of the Bible. The Pagan moralists lack life and 
color, and even the noble Stoic, Marcus Antoninus, 
is too high and refined for an ordinary child. Take 
the Bible as a whole; make the severest deductions 
which fair criticism can dictate for shortcomings and 
positive errors, and there still remains in this old 
literature a vast residuum of moral beauty and grand- 
eur. By the study of what other book could chil- 
dren be so much humanized, and made to feel that 
each figure in that vast historical procession fills, 
like themselves, but a momentary space in the in- 
terval between two eternities, and earns the bless- 
ings or curses of all time, according to its efforts to 
do good and hate evil, even as they also are earning 
their payment for their work ?" 

Surely these tributes are honest. And now, by 
what right, let me demand, do such men keep the. 
Bible out of any grade or scheme of education? 
Making such concessions of its supreme excellence, 
why do they not use it as it deserves, they them- 
selves being judges? 

How grandly do such testimonies of these giant 



Mundane versus Cosmic Culture. 171 

unbelievers save us the necessity of even listening 
to the paltry prattle of pigmy skeptics who talk of 
the Bible as dwarfing the intellect and opposing its 
culture ! No other force on earth has done a tithe 
as much to quicken the intellect. It has not been 
the Bible which has stood in the way of science, but 
its misinterpretations ; not the Church, but the world 
in the Church ; not religion, but the sin remaining in 
the stolid, ignorant, superstitious devotees of re- 
ligion. 

"Dwarfing the intellect!" Has this "scientific 
age" outgrown Shakespeare and Milton; or has it 
rather distinguished itself by climbing to a better ap- 
preciation of their marvelous genius than any other 
age since their time ? Well, they had not outgrown 
the Bible. Take from the almost inspired, practical 
wisdom of the one and from the majestic eloquence 
of the other what they owed to this universal classic, 
and you destroy their writings. 

It is time for us to notice more specifically the 
attitude of this great classic toward that cosmic cul- 
ture, the need of which our study of human nature 
abundantly reveals. 

Our attention is immediately arrested by the fact 
that the author of this book is no specialist. He 
does not point out a single field of inquiry and bid 



172 Religious Certainties. 



us limit ourselves to that. He does not cleave the 
human soul asunder and teach us to give exclusive 
attention to the culture of one part of it, until the 
intoxicated intellect imagines itself all-wise and the 
spirit shrivels to death. It rather throws open to 
man the whole boundless field of truth and virtue 
as his proper heritage, and in generous and em- 
phatic condemnation of all narrowness in thought 
or character cries out, "Whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if 
there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think 
on these things." 

Thus we see that the man who takes the Bible 
for his guide must, so far as his opportunities per- 
mit, seek after all truth and intermeddle with all 
knowledge. But cosmic culture is not to be attained 
by searching after all truth simply for the sake of 
knowledge and development. That would make it 
only an enlarged mundane culture. The early proc- 
esses of culture, conducted in a right spirit, reveal 
man's chief needs as having to do with character. 
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." 
Religion is not a supplementary adornment, admir- 
able but non-essential, like the thousands of elab- 



Mundane versus Cosmic Culture. 173 

orately chiseled flowers and statues on the marble 
roof of the Milan Cathedral ; it is foundation, walls, 
columns, dome, and all. If it be anything, it is 
everything. It either has no claim on us at all, or 
must claim all we are and can do. 

This sweeping claim for religion may be abun- 
dantly vindicated by any one of several lines of argu- 
ment. I shall refer now to but one directly sug- 
gested by the theme of this address ; viz., the im- 
perative need of religion in order to true culture. 
Volumes might be filled with the despairing wails 
of the devotees of culture apart from God. "Vanity 
of vanities," is their cry, "all is vanity." "In much 
wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowl- 
edge increaseth sorrow." 

" They who know the most 
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth 
The tree of knowledge is not that of life." 

Archbishop Trench has a touchingly beautiful 
and truthful didactic poem setting forth the million 
times repeated failure of all culture which is its own 
end. He represents a youth favored with oppor- 
tunities of culture the most brilliant and faithfully 
improved, but leading to such disappointment and 
aridness of soul as drives him forth despairing to 
desert sands. As he sits there heartbroken beside 



i74 Reugious Certainties. 



a ruined temple, an old man stands by his side and 
asks, "What is your sorrow ?" He glowingly depicts 
his hope, his search, his failure, his corroding grief. 
The old sage speaks to him words of sympathy and 
of revelation, and ends by uttering to him and for us 
all a lesson as beautifully simple as it is profoundly 
true : 

" You thought by efforts of your own 
To take at last each jarring tone 
Out of your life, till all should meet 
In one majestic music sweet ; 
And deemed that in your own heart's ground 
The root of good was to be found, 
And that by careful watering 
And earnest tendance we might bring 
The bud, the blossom, and the fruit, 
To grow and flourish from that root. 
You deemed you needed nothing more 
Than skill and courage to explore 
Deep down enough in your own heart 
To where the well-head lay apart, 
-Which must the springs of being feed, 
And that these fountains did not need 
The soil that choked them moved away, 
To bubble in the open day. 
But, thanks to Heaven, it is not so ; 
That root a richer soil doth know 
Than our poor hearts could e'er supply ; 
That stream is from a source more high : 
From God it came, to God returns, 
Not nourished from our scanty urns, 
But fed from His unfailing river, 
Which runs and will run on forever." 



Mundane; versus Cosmic Culture. 175 

Thus we find ourselves once more at the feet of 
the Incomparable Teacher. What do we learn here 
concerning cosmic culture ? I never come anew into 
the presence of the Great Teacher without being im- 
pressed afresh with the peerless majesty of His 
intellect and His heart. He had but little of what 
men call education; He had probably never seen a 
map of the world ; He sat at the feet of no Socrates 
as Plato did, and no Gamaliel as Paul did ; He won 
but few proselytes, and those ignorant, awkward, 
and half-hearted; He wrote no books, no letters, 
not a line save one, and that in the dust; but He 
spake as never man spake; and the world has list- 
ened and been transformed. He said, "I, if I be 
lifted up" on the cross, to die in bitterest agony and 
disgrace, "will draw all men unto Me;" and they 
are coming, coming in ever-widening ranks all 
around the world. He said, when the words seemed 
lunatic folly, "All power is given unto me in heaven 
and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations." 
The teachers went, and their successors after them, 
and it has long since become the sanest of hopes 
that they will keep going until they accomplish their 
stupendous errand, by filling the whole earth with 
the music of the glad tidings. I ask you to note 
the fact that the startling and sublime success of 



176 Reugious Certainties. 



Jesus is due to spoken words. That pierced right 
hand never held a pen nor a sword. He had, He 
incarnated, He was the truth. It will cost us an 
effort to realize how widely the "greater than Solo- 
mon" is in this particular, separated from Solomon 
and from all other teachers ; but it will richly repay 
the effort. 

Have you never been struck with the uniqueness 
of the intellect of Jesus, when you have studied Him 
in comparison with the kingly thinkers of the world ? 
They wrought out grand philosophical systems ; or 
embodied the spirit of an age or of a nation, and 
so obtained dominion over millions ; or soared to 
the seventh heavens of poetic inspiration. Not so 
He. He never argues. He never doubts. He knows 
the truth, declares the truth, is the truth. Men 
listen, receive Him, and the truth makes them free. 
Some of the men who have astounded the world by 
their prodigious genius have been like mountains 
of crystal ice — brilliant, cloud-piercing, cold, fruit- 
less. The intellect of Jesus — to what shall I liken 
it ? It is "the light of the world ;" most impressive 
symbol; for as the solar ray carries in itself light, 
heat, and chemical force, so the teaching of Jesus 
pours effulgent illumination into the mind, life- 
giving warmth into the heart, and transforming 
energy into the will. 



Mundane; versus Cosmic Culture:. 177 

His conception of truth is altogether unique. 
His attitude toward truth differs from the ordinary 
attitude of the human mind. What men are is re- 
vealed by their uses of certain words. "Truth" is 
by no means the same thing in the mouths of Hux- 
ley, Emerson, and Wordsworth. It may mean scien- 
tific verity, or a collection of philosophical principles, 
or the soul of all things. Not such is truth on the 
lips of Jesus. With Him it is not a thing of the 
intellect alone, nor of the imagination, nor of the 
heart ; but of the whole man. I would I could take 
the time for a full exposition of this thought as 
admirably unfolded by one of the most widely known 
of American religious teachers, the Rev. Phillips 
Brooks. I must content myself with a brief cita- 
tion of his weighty words: 

"Indeed, knowledge is no word of Jesus at all. 
Solomon is always talking about knowledge; Jesus 
talks about truth. So genuine is the unity of His 
being that what comes to Him as knowledge is 
pressed and gathered into every part of His being 
and fills His entire nature as truth. The rays of in- 
tellectual life are absorbed into the whole substance 
of the spontaneous affections and the unerring will. 
The right and the true, the wrong and the false, 
are not separable one from another. When we see 
12 



178 Religious Certainties. 



how constantly it is the crudity of the unappropri- 
ated, unassimilated intellectuality that disappoints 
us in intellectual people, so-called ; when we find our- 
selves perpetually turning away from learned men 
whose knowledge has not been pressed down into 
character; when we find that the preponderance of 
the intellectual element in any man always dissatis- 
fies us and makes us recoil, and, with all the interest 
that we may feel in Him, does not let us think that 
We may have found the fullest and most perfect 
man, — then it becomes clear to us what a distinguish- 
ing thing in Jesus was this unity of life in which 
the notion of intellect was lost. Not from simple 
brain to simple brain, as the reasoning of Euclid 
comes to his students; but from total character to 
total characer comes the New Testament from God 
to man." 

See now if this interpretation is not justified by 
the words of the Master : "Ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free." "Whosoever 
committeth sin is the servant of sin. ... If the 
Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." 
"Sanctify them through Thy truth." "Every one 
that is of the truth heareth My voice." "I am the 
Way, the Truth, and the Life." 

We have thus arrived, under the guidance 



Mundane versus Cosmic Culture. 179 

of the Supreme Teacher, at a conception of 
what religion is. It is the enfranchisement of 
man. It makes him free. He is the bound 
slave of self and Satan. It breaks his chains. 
It untwists and rends the tough threefold cord 
of custom, habit, and nature. Nay, the victim is 
not only bound, but dead and reeking in corrup- 
tion. But lo ! He who is "the Way and the Truth" 
is also "the Life." He cries into man's tomb, 
"Arise!" and then, "Loose him and let him go." 
This beginning of life Jesus nourishes. He came 
to "give life, and to give it more abundantly." He 
vivifies, empowers, develops intellect, heart, will, 
until sin perishes ; and then tireless, sleepless, meas- 
ureless, eternal, real life begins. 

We meet to-day to dedicate this University Hall 
and the adjoining laboratory building to the uses 
of cosmic culture; i. e., to a broad, deep, genuine 
culture sought at the feet of the Great Teacher and 
in the shadow of His cross. May all students who 
shall gather here, and all professors who shall guide 
their studies, have what Chalmers praises in Newton 
as "the hardihood of true science ;" i. e., the courage 
to accept all truth regardless of its consequences ; 
and also that other and, if possible, richer possession 



180 Reugious Certainties. 



which Newton had, a humble and reverent Christian 
faith ! 

This is a Christian college. Such may it ever 
remain. Sooner than it shall dishonor the name it 
bears, and deny the faith of its founders, and join 
the ranks of blank agnosticism and contemptuous 
misbelief, may the lightnings of heaven smite its 
walls to the earth and oblivion hide its name from 
the memory of man ! I am most happy to say that 
in beautiful accord with the Christian traditions and 
the revival spirit of Methodist colleges generally, 
these walls (even before we could assemble to dedi- 
cate them) have had the lofty consecration of the 
sighs of penitents and the glad songs of new-born 
souls. 

Long live Hamline University ! Live a thousand 
years ! Live while these prairies glitter in snowy 
white or smile with golden harvests ! And when 
time shall be no more, then live on and live forever, 
in myriads of thy sons and daughters stimulated 
here to a divine hunger and thirst for knowledge 
and for character, which can never be satisfied until 
"the Lamb that is the midst of the throne shall be 
their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains 
of waters of life." 



YII. 



THE MORAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 

(Semi-Centenniae oe Weseeyan University, 

MlDDEETOWN, CONN., JUNE 2Cj, 1 88 1.) 

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; 
Fear God and keep His commandments, for this 
is the whole duty of man." — Ecce. xii, 13. 

To-day this Christian college celebrates its 
fiftieth anniversary. Half a century ago a little 
band of true-hearted men planted it with mingled 
emotions of gratitude, faith, and hope — gratitude 
for what God had wrought in the world through 
Wesleyan Methodism; faith in the far-reaching and 
beneficent power of Christian education; and hope 
that their little banyan shoot might spread its 
branches outward in the inspiring light of universal 
knowledge, and strike its roots downward in the 
generous soil of steadfast faith, until it should ful- 
fill the double prophecy of its honored name, Wes- 
leyan University. 

181 



1 82 Reugious Certainties. 



And who was he whose name it bears ? This, I 
am aware, is no time for denominational self-glori- 
fication, and I shall not for an instant make it such. 
But Wesley, like Luther, is the heritage of the 
world. No sect can monopolize him; every Chris- 
tian philanthropist, philosopher, scholar, and patriot 
may claim him. His is one of those great names 
which, like lofty mountains, rise as they recede. 
Many of the finest eulogiums ever pronounced upon 
him have come from outside his communion, and 
even from eminent skeptics. Gladstone declares 
that he "gave the main impulse, out of which sprang 
the evangelical movement;" and Dean Stanley, that 
he "was the chief reviver of religious fervor in all 
Protestant Churches, both of the Old and the New 
World." Macaulay pronounces his "genius for gov- 
ernment not inferior to that of Richelieu;" Buckle 
terms him "the first of theological statesmen;" and 
Leslie Stephen says that "Wesleyanism is, in many 
respects, by far the most important phenomenon of 
the eighteenth century." 

If these, surely unprejudiced, encomiums are even 
half deserved, Wesley must have had a recognized 
and potential place among the educational forces of 
his time. Not otherwise could he have won such es- 
timation in such quarters. At his very first Confer- 



The Moral Element in Education. 183 

ence he proposed the question, "Can we have a 
seminary?" and proceeded to establish one which is 
doing grand work to-day. He compiled text-books 
in Latin and English grammar and history, in elocu- 
tion and logic, and published a "Complete English 
Dictionary" two years before Johnson's. He earned 
a high place among the men of his age for popular- 
izing knowledge. The great ulterior purpose with 
which his educational work was prosecuted is mani- 
fest in the inscription he placed on the front of 
Kingswood School : "In Gloriam Dei Optimi 
Maximi, in Usum Bcclesice et Reipublicce." 

This glance at Wesley's work in education shows 
us, that, like all his work, it was intensely, absorb- 
ingly practical. It was a means to an end. Edu- 
cation was simply one of the levers with which 
he was prying hard to lift up humanity. He 
aimed at the "harmonization of man with his en- 
vironment," though he would have called it, in more 
idiomatic English, fitting man into his place; and 
that place, in his conception, was the place of the 
highest attainable character and power in this and 
in a better world. Hence his famous aphorism, 
"Cleanliness is next to godliness," and his strenuous 
efforts to alleviate physical woes. Hence, also, his 
zealous labors for the intellectual quickening of the 



Religious Certainties. 



masses ; but both these in order to something higher ; 
as means to the supreme end which he kept ever- 
more in view, and which may be termed, in the 
largest sense of these words, moral ennoblement. 

We thus come, by a natural and easy path, to 
the topic of the hour: 

The Moral Element in Education. 

The philosophical basis of this essential part of 
education needs no voluminous proof, nor even 
elaborate statement. It will readily appear if, bear- 
ing in mind the purpose of any education, we con- 
sider man as an individual, a member of society, a 
subject of the Almighty Monarch, and an immortal 
being. In each and all of these aspects of his na- 
ture, man can not explain himself to himself with- 
out constant reference to moral considerations. He 
has duties every moment, on every side, which he 
can not adequately meet without constant accessions 
of light and impulse. 

For such a being, what is education ? Let Pesta- 
lozzi answer : "Education relates to the whole man, 
and consists in the drawing forth, strengthening, 
and perfecting all the faculties with which an all- 
wise Creator has endowed him — physical, intellectual, 



The: Moral Element in Education. 185 

and moral. Education has to do with the hand, the 
head, and the heart." Let Herbert Spencer answer : 
"The one end of all true education is to learn how to 
use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of our- 
selves and others," or "how to live completely. And 
this being the great thing needful for us to learn, is, 
by consequence, the great thing which education 
has to teach. To prepare us for complete living is 
the function which education has to discharge; and 
the only rational mode of judging of any educational 
course is to judge in what degree it discharges that 
function." So say two mighty masters in this great 
work. "The drawing forth, strengthening, and per- 
fecting all the faculties" — that is the method. "How 
to live completely" — that is the end. Need another 
word be said to show that moral education has a 
philosophical basis? Have we a faculty, or an as- 
semblage of faculties, or a mode of action of any 
faculty, known by the name of conscience? Do the 
terms right and wrong convey any positive, not to 
say definite, impressions? Are there any ethical 
distinctions? Are "ought," "must," "duty," "re- 
morse," suggestive of any ideas? Has conscience 
anything to do with a man's relations to self-culture, 
to his fellow-men, and to God? Is it cultivable? 
Like muscle and thought, is it toughened by tension ? 



1 86 Reugious Certainties. 



and can the fineness of its fiber be indefinitely im- 
proved? These questions need no answer. 

The momentous practical importance of the 
morai element in education is, if possible, still more 
manifest than the scientific necessity of it. Take 
the average college graduate, and observe him as he 
goes forth into the world. What are the demands 
made upon him? What does society most need to 
find in him? Does it search him through and 
through until it finds somewhere in his cranium "a 
clear, cold logic engine," strongly built, smoothly 
running, equal to any purely intellectual feats ? Far 
be it from me to even seem to depreciate the very 
broadest, highest intellectual culture and power. 
Man's intellect is a spark from the burning splen- 
dors of the Infinite Intelligence. Let its every 
power of perception, intuition, comparison, reason, 
be developed to the full. Let it forage widely in 
the field of physics, metaphysics, language, litera- 
ture, history, and all other knowledge. It is sub- 
lime to know, and to know how to learn. 

Still there is room for our question, What does 
the world most want to find in the average college 
graduate? Is it not to find him a manly man? 
Character, — that is the grand desideratum. He is 
a lawyer ; his clients want to be assured of his hon- 



Th£ Moral Element in Education. 187 

esty in his dealings, and of his conscientious fidelity 
in looking after their interests. He is a physician, 
a real estate agent, a minister of the gospel, a poli- 
tician, a teacher. In every field of endeavor, recti- 
tude, nobleness, uncalculating and strenuous integ- 
rity are his great needs. These carry with them 
the assurance of the best use of his intellectual 
forces. 

And whatever his special profession or occupa- 
tion, he has social, civil, political, ecclesiastical rela- 
tions, in all of which the chief demand is for char- 
acter. So are we always and everywhere driven 
back upon the moral element in culture and in life. 

The logical and inseparable connection between 
moral and religious culture has already forced itself 
on our attention, and must now be more distinctly 
considered. Of this connection there are various 
proofs, adapted to various classes of mind. On this 
consecrated hill, where for fifty years successive 
classes of students have been led by Christian in- 
structors to 

" Siloa's brook that flowed 
Fast by the oracles of God," 

I need not for a moment detain you at this point 
from the highest line of argument. In this place 
no day has passed since Wilbur Fisk first trod this 



188 Reugious Certainties. 



campus without humble invocation of the presence 
and guidance of that Incomparable Teacher who left 
no writings, but whose spoken words have filled the 
world. The thought of the race is busier about Him 
in this age than ever before, with multitudinous 
results, prominent among which is this: all men 
agree to crown Him King of Ethics. There is no 
such moral code as His. The long line of the most 
brilliant opponents of Christianity as a religion rev- 
erently bow their heads to Jesus Christ as the very 
foremost teacher of morals. Well, then, he is true ; 
he is "the Truth," and the fountain of truth to men. 
When He speaks He is to be believed, "our ene- 
mies themselves being judges." 

Now, what does he say on the topic before us? 
The effort has been studiously made to make him 
say nothing but ethics. His moral precepts have 
been lifted up and hung about with such profuse 
drapery of highly rhetorical adulation as to conceal, 
if possible, His religion and His blessed person. 
If possible, I say; but it is impossible. The very 
writers who most positively profess to have accom- 
plished this task, unconsciously admit their total 
failure. 

The author of that remarkable skeptical book, 
"Supernatural Religion," asserts that "the earliest 



The; Moral, Element in Education. 189 

teaching of Jesus recorded in the Gospel which can 
be regarded as in any degree historical is pure 
morality, almost, if not quite, free from theological 
dogmas." Yet, only two pages afterward, the same 
writer states, wholly unaware of his own incon- 
sistency, that Christ's teaching "confined itself to 
two fundamental principles — love to God, and love 
to man." On this admission Principal Shairp fitly 
comments thus: "As if the precept to love God 
with all the heart and soul and mind implied no 
theology ; as if it did not, indeed, involve the whole 
of theology, the belief that God is ; that He rewards 
those who diligently seek Him; that, in spite of all 
the darkness and unrighteousness there is in the 
world, He is still worthy of our entire trust and love. 
No theology, indeed, in this ! To believe this much 
demands the fullest stretch of faith of which man 
is capable. After accepting these fundamental be- 
liefs, all else is comparatively easy of acceptance." 

Renan, too, falls into the same inconsistency, — 
first asserting that "we seek in vain for a single 
theological proposition in the gospel," and then, that 
"a lofty conception of the Divinity is in some sort 
the germ of our Lord's whole being." 

In further proof of the indissoluble connection 
of morality with religion, and hence of the absolute 



190 Reugious Certainties. 



necessity of their coeval and reciprocal development 
in education, I call attention to the fact that there 
never has been a nation in which tolerably correct 
moral ideas and practices have prevailed in the ab- 
sence of a genuine and operative, although an im- 
perfect, religious faith. The early age in the life 
of every nation which history cares to concern itself 
about, has been an age of religious reverence, and 
of a morality basing itself on the supposed will of a 
higher power. 

Later ages may have been far richer in evidences 
of intellectual development and culture, but if re- 
ligion has decayed, morality has declined pari passu. 
There is in human nature no reliable foundation for 
virtue apart from God. In ethics it is pre-eminently 
true that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom." Ancient Rome must ever stand as a most 
signal illustration of these principles. Her earliest 
religion was comparatively pure. It employed no 
idols. It prevented divorce for two centuries. It 
gave us the words "sacrament" and "religion." 
Mommsen says it viewed "guilt as a crime against 
the gods." Plutarch uttered this profound truth: 
"Sooner may a city exist without houses and 
grounds than a State without faith in the gods. 
This is the bond of union, the support of all legisla- 



The Moral Element in Education. 191 

tion." Polybius praises the Romans especially for 
their piety, declaring that "among them the admin- 
istration of public funds is more secure by means 
of the oath than elsewhere through the most ex- 
tensive system of checks." And Augustus expressly 
decreed that every senator, before he took his place, 
should go to a temple, offer a libation, and scatter 
incense. 

Happy had it been for the greatest of empires if 
the severe simplicity of her early faith and morals 
had attended her magnificent outmarch of conquest. 
In the Roman Forum Augustus set up a golden 
milestone, the startingpoint of the great military 
roads which led into all the lands Rome had con- 
quered. Rome was the center of Italy, Italy the cen- 
ter of the world. From the Nile to the Tweed there 
was but one empire. Power has never been so con- 
centrated on this planet as on the banks of the Tiber. 
Nation after nation was subjugated and assimi- 
lated by this most marvelous of the nations. 

And then there passes before our eyes one of the 
most mournfully solemn spectacles in all history, 
what Gibbon calls "a sinking world." The most 
magnificent nation on earth is overrun and ravaged 
by Northern hordes. Her superb civilization per- 
ishes utterly. Why ? There can be but one answer : 



192 Reugious Certainties. 



Because it lacked any moral foundation. Religion 
had perished, with it morality, and soon after it 
civilization and national life. With million-voiced 
emphasis the old lesson is again thundered into our 
ears, that intellectual culture, the most varied and 
brilliant, is not the true life of man. "Old," I say ; 
for, a thousand years before, the wisest of men, 
after full discussion of this subject — illustrated by 
minute details of his own, intensely instructive 
because exhaustively ample and pungently bitter, 
experience concerning it — sent down through the 
ages a sententious dictum which every age has sol- 
emnly reaffirmed: "Let us hear the conclusion of 
the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His com- 
mandments : for this is the whole duty of man." 

Yet there are not wanting superficial thinkers 
who insist that our age is an age of decaying re- 
ligion and improving morality. What Carlyle char- 
acteristically excoriates as a "gospel of dirt" is held 
to have discredited the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All 
Christian and other Biblical postulates have been 
rudely jostled, and all theistic assumptions will soon 
be laughed out of intellectual society. So we are 
told. Let Disraeli answer all such superficial prate. 
In "Lothair" he says: "Wiseacres go on talking 
about the decline of religion, and religion the mean- 



The Moral Element in Education. 193 

while goes on building up and tearing down em- 
pires. Religion dying in the world ! And yet if 
you touch religion, or tread on religious convictions, 
a revolution will be kindled in twenty- four hours in 
any nation in Christendom as fierce as that which 
deluged France with blood ninety years ago. Re- 
ligion dying in America! The Americans are a 
very patient and wonderfully tolerant people, but 
touch them as to their religion, and quicker than 
they sprung to arms when Sumter was fired on will 
battalions muster, as though the land were sown 
with dragons' teeth." 

Let the Jew teach timid Christians that religion 
is not declining. No "philosophy, falsely so called," 
nor truly so called, can bow out the Man of Naza- 
reth. His kingdom is marching grandly on. This 
century has witnessed many of its greatest con- 
quests. Some of the woodwork of theology which 
the superserviceable zeal of men of former ages had 
built about the citadel of truth, has indeed been de- 
molished, but the grand proportions and impregna- 
ble strength of the citadel itself have thereby only 
been revealed; and the rational, Christian, and 
Biblical foundations of religious faith stand as firmly 
as ever. If not, and if essential religion is really 
waning, then history may terribly repeat itself, and 
13 



194 Religious Certainties. 



some future Gibbon may record the decline and fall 
of the great British Empire and the greater Amer- 
can Republic. 

Facts thus furnish what scarcely falls short of a 
scientific denomstration, that man has a moral and 
religious nature ; nay, a demonstration which under- 
lies, overtops, and enfolds all scientific processes. 
The God-consciousness is at the bottom of self-con- 
sciousness. Even Spencer and Tyndall find them- 
selves obliged continually to speak of ''the Unknown 
Cause," "the Unseen Reality," "the Ultimate Ex- 
istence," and even (words which, borrowed in part 
from Paul, befit his lips better than Tyndall's, and 
yet which all human lips at some times yearn to 
utter) "the Inscrutable Power, at once terrible and 
beneficent, in whom we live, and move, and have our 
being and our end." 

It is hardly too much to say, with Newman 
Smyth, that "had man not been organized first for 
God, he would not have been organized for knowl- 
edge of the creation. Science, to a person without 
religious endowment, would be impossible." Nitsch 
says: "The felt consciousness of God produces out 
of itself ground perceptions, by virtue of which, be- 
fore all scientific mediation, it can rule and condi- 
tion the whole domain of conceptions." Similarly, 



The Moral Element in Education. 195 

Ulrici urges that the religious feeling is the neces- 
sary condition of all knowledge, without which we 
could not rise above the level of the brute. Bold 
postulates these ; but does not the deepest philosophy 
of human nature sustain them? I borrow an illus- 
tration and broaden its application: "You can not 
have true physics without astronomy ; a correct view 
of the earth without a look, at least, at the stars, 
and some knowledge of the sun; neither can you 
have true morals without this upward glance, with- 
out some perception of the moral ideal, that divine 
perfection which is the light of all our seeing. 
Theology is moral astronomy, indispensable to any 
true knowledge of our earthly life." I would rather 
say Christianity is human astronomy, without which 
man is "of the earth, earthy." He may try to soar, 
but he will be quickly rooting again in his "gospel of 
dirt." He must have Moses and Christ. Without 
the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount, he is 
"earthly and sensual," and — let us not shrink from 
the remainder of the most unwelcome but terribly 
truthful sarcasm — "devilish." 

If these sentiments are even approximately just, 
the bearing of them on the topic of the hour is 
sharply manifest and most momentous. What duty 
can be more urgent than to pour all our educational 



196 



Religious Certainties. 



processes full of moral principle and religious life, 
and especially to see to it that the higher education, 
which is to give law to the masses of men in all mat- 
ters of scientific, philosophical, and theological opin- 
ion, shall never lose sight of Sinai or of Calvary; 
that it shall be thoroughly theistic and consistently 
Christian ? 

We may well observe, with jealous concern, the 
tendency of our time toward what is termed in high- 
sounding phrase, "the secularization of education." 
What if some "advanced thinker" on the science of 
life, in order to avert disease and augment physical 
power, should advocate a simplification of nutrition, 
by means of a patent arrangement for barring the 
blood out of the lungs, or dispensing with the gas- 
tric juice, insisting that digestion and the aeration of 
the blood are cumbrous and unnecessary appendages 
to nutrition ? You would quickly remand him from 
this to the opposite hill, from our Hall of Science 
to that larger hall of nescience and agnosticism.* 
Education, like nutrition, relates to an entire and 
complex organism. If you could eliminate from 
man everything else but pure intellect, then might 
you, with some show of reason, secularize his edu- 
cation. If you could prove to a demonstration that 

* The Asylum for the Insane. 



The Moral Element in Education. 197 

he has no conscience, no heart, no duties, no rela- 
tions to men, no obligations to God, no religious as- 
pirations, no hereafter, then, perchance, might you 
omit all moral and religious teaching of such an 
abject; — no, not even then, for if man were intel- 
lect alone, the truth would still stand that the most 
inspiring ideas that can ever enter the intellect are 
ideas, not of nature and of force, but of the sublime 
Personality who is the Author of both. Our intel- 
lectual needs forbid the omission from education of 
these greatest of all thoughts. How much more our 
profounder needs ! 

Certain things, doubtless, must be seen in the 
cold daylight of intellect alone — the multiplication 
table, for example, and the old red sandstone. No 
other light is necesary to determine whether three 
times four are twelve, or whether certain tracks 
were made by birds or reptiles. But there are things 
which can be seen only in a better light, or rather 
through a medium which is more than light — the 
sunshine of the soul ; and sunshine is made up of 
light, heat, and chemical force. It illuminates, vivi- 
fies, transforms. Man is more than intellect. The 
validity of his judgments depends upon the solidar- 
ity of his powers. A one-sided culture is neces- 
sarily misleading. You may have an athlete, a 



198 Religious Certainties. 



pedant, "a clear, cold logic engine," a marvelous 
artist, a brilliant specialist, even an intense reformer, 
or a rapt saint, and no man. O man, know thy dig- 
nity and thy magnificent destiny ! Thy place is next 
to God. He made thee in His own image. Man 
wants morality and religion — the time morality, the 
one perfect, final religion — not Confucius, Zoroas- 
ter, Socrates, nor Moses alone, but Jesus Christ. 
He is "the desire of all nations." It is truer than 
ever that "all men seek" Him. Scientists, moralists, 
philosophers, reformers, statesmen, all men, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, are swelling the refrain, 
"We would see Jesus." The mind and heart of the 
world have been so enkindled by the search after 
truth, that nothing but the highest truth can satisfy 
them. 

It is said that a Frenchman named Le Peau un- 
dertook to contrive a new religion, and to foist it 
upon the world, — a sort of theo-philanthropy which 
he thought well suited to his vain and volatile na- 
tion. Surprised at his scanty success, he asked ad- 
vice of the prince of diplomatists. Talleyrand 
listened to his statement of his project and its diffi- 
culties, and then said : "Well, M. Le Peau, you have 
indeed undertaken a hard task, a very hard task; 
and if you wish to succeed in the great endeavor 



The; Moral Element in Education. 199 



to establish a new religion, I advise you to be cruci- 
fied, and to rise again on the third day." Thus did 
this master of statecraft offer the tribute of his 
spontaneous homage to the Author of that one final 
religion which is permeating and molding the na- 
tions. 

The train of thought thus developed has various 
and exceedingly important practical issues. Prom- 
inent among these is the question, How far and in 
what manner should popular education be conducted 
by the State? That the State has some function in 
this matter is now generally admitted. It must see 
that its citizens have some intelligence. It must 
provide the opportunity for future voters to know 
how to read their ballots. Is that all ? The practical 
answer of most of the States in this country goes 
far beyond this. Our public schools generally teach 
the branches necessary to a tolerable business educa- 
tion for the masses of the people. Multitudes of 
cities and towns have also high schools, many of 
which prepare students for college (after a fashion), 
and several of the States have established, and are 
munificently supporting, normal schools, colleges, 
and universities. 

There are certain aspects of this question of 



200 Religious Certainties. 



higher education by the State which belong to polit- 
ical economy ; such as this, Whether the State has a 
right to tax all the people for the support of a grade 
of education whose advantages can be enjoyed by 
but very few ? This and kindred questions are com- 
paratively trivial, and must not detain us now. We 
are concerned about interests greater than dollars 
and cents. 

The vital question is, In what relation should 
public education stand toward moral and religious 
truth and culture? There can be but one right 
answer. No man, no set of men, no government, 
has any right to assume the functions of education 
without attempting to do the work of education by 
drawing out, strengthening, and symmetrically de- 
veloping all the powers of our complex nature. A 
celebrated medical lecturer once said: "Gentlemen, 
physiologists will have it that the stomach is a mill, 
others that it is a fermenting-vat, others, again, that 
it is a stew-pan ; but in my view of the matter, it is 
neither a mill, nor a fermenting-vat, nor a stew- 
pan, but a stomach, gentleman, a stomach." Even 
so there are doctrinaires in education who need to 
be reminded that any specialist view of human na- 
ture is false, by its omissions at least, and may be 
fatal. What sort of being is this whom you propose 



The Moraiv Element in Education. 201 



to educate? Human, gentleman, human; that is, 
manifold, complex. 

Start with the postulate that man is intellect 
alone, and your scheme of education must be rad- 
ically defective and vicious. Man is body, intellect, 
heart, will, conscience, and spirit. All these must be 
educated together, or you wrong, and may ruin, 
your pupil. Especially and pre-eminently is it essen- 
tial, in order to secure the highest end of education, 
which we have seen to be character, that the great 
cardinal principles of morality and religion should 
be constantly assumed, and from time to time, as 
occasion may require, specifically taught. 

The effort to avoid such teaching leads to a 
quick and sharp rednctio ad absitrdum. How will 
you initiate the attempt? By ejecting the Bible and 
all public prayers from the school, and omitting 
from its curriculum all books on ethics and Chris- 
tian evidences ? Is your way now clear ? Will you 
also eject Milton and Shakespeare from your course 
in English literature? If not, your pupils will still 
run the risk of being poisoned by large doses of 
ethics and theology! Will you chase Homer and 
Virgil, ^schylus and Cicero, out of your classical 
course? If not, the same peril, in minor degree, 
still remains. Will you rewrite and emasculate all 



202 Reugious Certainties. 



history, and still the voice of every bard, and stop 
midway in your metaphysics, and call a halt on the 
hither edge of every science ? If not, the awful form 
of obligation may meet you at any turn; and you 
can never be certain that the next step may not show 
you the hand and thrill you with the heart-throb of 
the Infinite One. 

Duty meets us everywhere, and the will of the 
x\lmighty is made known to us in the majestic music 
of her voice. Wordsworth is not less philosopher 
than poet when, in his "Ode to Duty," he exclaims : 

" Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead' s most benignant grace ; 
Nor know we anything so fair 

As is the smile upon thy face. 
Flowers laugh before thee in their beds, 
And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, 

And the most ancient heavens through thee are 
fresh and strong." 

Any study may bring us face to face with moral 
and religious questions which we can not blink. So 
the question is not whether the State will have any- 
thing to do with religion in education, but whether 
its educational work shall be theistic or atheistic, 
Christian or infidel. There is no neutrality in this 
war. The fundamental conception of a personal 



The: MoRAiy Element in Education. 203 

God confronts the opening mind; and the whole 
spirit of a school, college, or university must and 
will make some affirmation concerning it; either, 
"I find no need for the hypothesis of a God," or 
else, there is a God who made and upholds all things, 
and whose will is the standard of all obligation. 

So, if the State enters the field of education at 
all, it is her imperative duty to educate morally and 
religiously. Not to do so is to wrong and victimize 
the opening minds of which she assumes control at 
the most- critical period of their development, and 
also suicidally to defeat the great end she has in 
view in training her future citizens. What nation, 
and especially what republic, can soberly hope for 
long-continued, not to say happy, existence, unless 
the tides of her life are poured full of lofty purposes 
and noble ideas; that is, of moral and religious 
thought and power? 

I know I may be referred to the home and the 
Church as furnishing the proper fields and ample 
facilities for moral and religious teaching. But this 
scheme seems to me to ignore three facts vital to the 
question: I. The utterly insufficient moral and re- 
ligious training in the vast majority of homes ; 2. 
The brevity and infrequency of the lessons of the 
pulpit and the Sunday-school; and 3. The fact that 



204 Reugious Certainties. 



from the days of Pythagoras till now the silent in- 
fluence and even the ipse dixit of every forceful 
teacher have set their enduring stamp on his pupils. 
Such a teacher commands high respect by his genius 
and learning. His devotees are at the precise age 
for hero-worship. He has their deeply interested 
attention, not to trite topics for a brief half hour 
once a week, but to fresh and inspiring themes for 
ample periods through all the week. Hence, his 
opinions on matters of the highest moment, and 
even outside his department, often have greater 
weight than those of parents and pastors. Bishop 
Thomson hardly overstates the case when he says: 
"The schoolhouse is the great fountain of national 
character, and sends forth sweet or bitter waters 
through all the streams of the nation's thought. It 
must be in the hands of either religious or irreligious 
men. Let it fall into the latter, and Catiline is at 
the gate of our Rome." 

The duty of the Christian Church in education, 
also, needs to be clearly seen and deeply felt. The 
history of education in this country shows that this 
duty was very early recognized, and has been faith- 
fully prosecuted. Why are we here to-day? To 
rejoice over the first fifty years' history of the oldest 
Methodist college in the land. It may seem to need 



The: Moral Element in Education. 205 

explanation that the most numerous Protestant de- 
nomination in America, the one chiefly represented 
here, should have entered the field of college educa- 
tion so late. But during our first half century we 
could do little but evangelizing work. 

We did, indeed, early establish academies, the 
number of which has been greatly multiplied and 
their grade improved, but I could wish we had bet- 
ter earned the praise accorded us by Edward 
Everett, who said "there was no Church in the 
United States so successfully engaged in the cause 
of education as the Methodist Church." Some idea 
of what we have accomplished may be gathered 
from the report of the United States Commissioner 
of Education for 1878, which shows that the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church then had under its super- 
vision forty-four universities and colleges, attended 
by 7>93° students — a larger number of students 
than were in similar institutions of any other de- 
nomination, Protestant or Romanist, and more than 
one-eighth of all the college students reported. In 
addition to these, there are ninety seminaries, acade- 
mies, and female colleges under the supervision of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. The whole num- 
ber of students now receiving instruction in the lit- 
erary institutions of this Church is about 21,000. 



2o6 Reugious Certainties. 



These institutions were all of them founded by 
Christian men and women, with the distinctly 
avowed purpose of promoting moral and religious, 
together with intellectual, education; and nine- 
tenths of all the universities and colleges in the 
United States are under positively Christian super- 
vision. If, then, as we have seen, the State is bound 
by considerations relating to its own highest inter- 
ests, and growing out of the very nature of educa- 
tion, to educate morally and religiously, a fortiori 
the Church is held to this work by the grip of still 
more cogent reasons. For her own sake, for hu- 
manity's sake, for the country's sake, for Christ's 
sake, she must be, as she always has been, foremost 
in this great endeavor. Fas est ah hoste doceri. I 
recall a conversation in which one of the most emi- 
nent rationalistic educators in this country, after 
hearing about the methods of religious teaching in 
various colleges, said: "I would not on any account 
submit a son of mine to the religious influences of 
Williams College, or Dartmouth, or Wesleyan." 
Instructive comment, thought I, on that ostentatious 
liberalism which insists on hospitality to all ideas ! 
And then he added: "If I supposed there was any 
particular thing, say A, necessary to be believed in 
order to salvation, I should feel bound by every sen- 



The Moral Element in Education. 207 



timent of honor and duty to see to it that every stu- 
dent committed to my care should be taught that A. 
But there is no such thing." Church of God, on 
kindred principles of reasoning, what do "honor 
and duty" require of you ? Show your faith by your 
works. 

Another of the foremost of American educators, 
of a widely different type, holds the following line 
of argument : Most colleges are professedly Chris- 
tian. They have daily morning prayers. Those 
prayers are offered to a personal God; that consti- 
tutes a profession of Theism. They are offered in 
the name of Jesus Christ; that constitutes a pro- 
fession of Christian Theism. "Now, I hold," says 
he, "that whenever in any recitation or lecture room, 
whether of history, philosophy, science, or any 
other, a question arises relating to Theism or to 
Christianity, consistency alone (not to speak of any 
higher motive) absolutely requires that the public 
religious profession of that college should then and 
there be vindicated by positive Theistic and Chris- 
tian teaching." 

The duty of a college concerning the topic of 
the hour has to do with its general arrangements for 
moral and religious culture, with its curriculum of 
study, and with the character and work of its stu- 



208 



Religious Certainties. 



dents and officers. Every college should, if prac- 
ticable, have, as this has, an elegant, prominently 
located, churchlike chapel, whose heavenward- 
pointing spire shall invite developing mind to the 
loftiest thought and purpose. Where it can be done 
effectively, let there be a fully organized college 
Church, with its Sunday services, class-meetings, 
prayer-meetings, and Bible-school. Let no convert 
called to the ministry, coming to college from the 
glow of a zealous home Church and Sunday-school, 
find himself chilled to death by a transition from 
Florida to Iceland. The daily morning prayers in a 
college, like those in a well-ordered home, should 
be occasions of reverent, deliberate reading of the 
most interesting portions of God's Holy Word, of 
hearty singing, and of varied, fit, fervent, prayer. 
Who of us who heard them can ever forget Olin's 
majestic adoration and Fisk's tender and subduing 
intercession ? 

There is reason to apprehend that the ordinary 
college curriculum is less Christian than formerly. 
How the Bible should be taught is a fair question for 
frank and reverent discussion, but surely somehow. 
Not as a half-studied or utterly unstudied Monday 
morning's apology for a recitation. Give it a good 
place or none, and in every department let there be 



The Moral Element in Education. 209 



no flings at it, nor apologetic references to it, and 
quotations from it. Its divine life is proved by its 
survival of the treatment of its professed friends. 

Hebrew, New Testament Greek, theoretical and 
practical ethics, natural theology, and Christian evi- 
dences certainly deserve thorough teaching in a col- 
lege ; and the man who shall, in the light of the lat- 
est science and criticism, produce fit text-books on 
these last two subjects will deserve well at once of 
philosophy and of religion. Where are the Paleys 
and the Butlers of to-day ? And who are the Chris- 
tian scientists to furnish the "Bridgewater Treat- 
ises" for the last quarter of the nineteenth century? 
Every age must restate the evidences of Christianity 
with special reference to current objections. Happy 
the man whose genius and culture, illuminated from 
above, shall prepare him for this great work ! 

Concerning the character of college students, I 
shall take the time but for few words, and they shall 
be words based on profound conviction. A college 
is not a reform school, nor a hospital for rakes and 
debauchees, nor a luxurious lounging-place for 
idlers. It is a place consecrated to truth and virtue, 
and to the strenuous search after truth and virtue. 
It is therefore an unpardonable profanation for the 
atmosphere of a college to be long polluted by the 
14 



2io Religious Certainties. 



foul breath of persistent vice, or by the secret plot- 
tings of shameless disorder. 

Let the annoying but harmless pranks of frolic- 
some youth be generously borne with for a time, 
especially if they be accompanied by that honor and 
manliness which can not endure the slightest shadow 
of falsehood ; but let every parent be assured that in 
college his son shall not be tempted by the presence 
of drunken, lewd, lying, perversely mischievous, or 
recklessly lazy companions. Let all such cancerous 
excrescences be remorselessly cut off. 

If the circumstances of college life furnish fair 
ground for such a demand for character in students, 
how much more in college officers ! Men of bril- 
liant genius and varied culture and extensive erudi- 
tion and aptness to teach, they ought to be, if prac- 
ticable; men, manly men, men of noble character 
and lofty purpose, they must be. To put any but 
such men into these high places of power is a reck- 
less trifling with the highest interests of the race. 
And in the light of the truths unfolded this hour, 
is it not eminently desirable, if not absolutely im- 
perative, that such character in college officers 
should base itself, and aim to build up character in 
others, on distinctively Christian foundations? Such 
men were my instructors in these halls in my youth. 



The Moral Element in Education. 211 

Of these I may not name the living; but my heart 
commands me, and I must name the president by 
whom I was matriculated, whose majestic form 
moving about this campus was a constant benedic- 
tion, and the president whose thin hand signed my 
diploma, and whose radiant, virile, and noble char- 
acter abide among my most cherished memories, — 
Stephen Olin and Augustus W. Smith. When, two 
decades later, Alma Mater called me to sit in the 
chair they had occupied, I was delighted to find 
some of that old-time Faculty and other likeminded 
men among my colleagues ; and when, a year ago, I 
went forth to other duties, it was my joy to leave 
such men as co-workers with my successor; and I 
confidently anticipate that dear old Wesleyan's 
goodly succession of such learned and Christian in- 
structors will go down the ages, with ranks chang- 
ing and widening but unbroken, followed by in- 
creasing numbers of admiring students, who shall 
imbibe their learning, and catch their spirit, and 
emulate their character, and win their heaven. 

Hail, beloved Alma Mater! On thy fiftieth anni- 
versary thy loyal sons and daughters gratefully and 
lovingly gather here to greet thee. This is thy 
golden wedding-day. Heroic purpose, having long 
since won his spurs by resolute endeavor, and weary 



2i2 Reugious Certainties. 



often in heart- sick search, has at last found his 
richly dowered mate — golden opportunity. These 
coy lovers have met and wedded on this campus, 
and we gather to-day to celebrate the nuptials. 

Long live Alma Mater! Live a thousand years ! 
Live while the placid Connecticut flows at thy feet ! 
And when yon river shall cease to flow, and these 
walls shall crumble back to dust, and the heavens 
and the earth shall pass away, live forever, Alma 
Mater, in myriads of souls fashioned by thy teach- 
ing to the finest issues of character, and graduated 
to the higher forms of the school of the Incompar- 
able Teacher! 



20 1905 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranbeny Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



i 



